Speaker
Dr
Walter Potzel
(Physik-Department E15, Technische Universität München, D-85748 Garching, Germany)
Description
In direct dark-matter search experiments, neutrinos coherently scattering off nuclei can produce similar events as Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs). Calculations show, that in such experiments, for solar neutrinos a count rate of a few events per ton of target mass and year of exposure are expected. This count rate strongly depends on the nuclear recoil-energy thresholds achieved in the WIMP-search experiments. We demonstrate that solar neutrinos can be a serious background: To reach sensitivities better than ~1*exp(-10) pb for the WIMP-nucleon cross section, the solar neutrino events have to be rejected by cuts with nuclear recoil-energy thresholds of approximately >2 keV for calcium tungstate, >3 keV for xenon, >5 keV for germanium, and >8 keV for argon as target material. Next-generation experiments should not only focus on a reduction of the present energy thresholds but mainly on an increase of the target masses. Atmospheric neutrinos limit the achievable sensitivity for background-free direct dark matter search to >1*exp(-12) pb.
Primary author
Mr
Achim Gütlein
(Physik-Department E15, Technische Universität München, D-85748 Garching, Germany)
Co-authors
Mr
Andreas Zöller
(Physik-Department E15, Technische Universität München, D-85748 Garching, Germany)
Mr
Christian Ciemniak
(Physik-Department E15, Technische Universität München, D-85748 Garching, Germany)
Mr
Christian Isaila
(Physik-Department E15, Technische Universität München, D-85748 Garching, Germany)
Prof.
Franz von Feilitzsch
(Physik-Department E15, Technische Universität München, D-85748 Garching, Germany)
Dr
Jean-Come Lanfranchi
(Physik-Department E15, Technische Universität München, D-85748 Garching, Germany)
Prof.
Lothar Oberauer
(Physik-Department E15, Technische Universität München, D-85748 Garching, Germany)
Mr
Martin Hofmann
(Physik-Department E15, Technische Universität München, D-85748 Garching, Germany)
Mr
Moritz von Sivers
(Physik-Department E15, Technische Universität München, D-85748 Garching, Germany)
Mr
Nils Haag
(Physik-Department E15, Technische Universität München, D-85748 Garching, Germany)
Mr
Raimund Strauss
(Physik-Department E15, Technische Universität München, D-85748 Garching, Germany)
Ms
Sabine Roth
(Physik-Department E15, Technische Universität München, D-85748 Garching, Germany)
Mr
Sebastian Pfister
(Physik-Department E15, Technische Universität München, D-85748 Garching, Germany)
Prof.
Tobias Lachenmaier
(Physik-Department E15, Technische Universität München, D-85748 Garching, Germany)
Dr
Walter Potzel
(Physik-Department E15, Technische Universität München, D-85748 Garching, Germany)
