Speaker
Description
Paleo-detectors offer a promising approach to the direct detection of WIMP dark matter via the readout of nuclear recoil damage tracks in natural minerals with ages on geological timescales of O(1 Gyr). These tracks act as a proxy for the recoil energy induced by WIMP–nucleus scattering. We present projections of the sensitivity of paleo-detectors to the full set of elastic and inelastic WIMP–nucleon interactions within the framework of non-relativistic effective field theory (NREFT), and compare their performance with that of conventional direct-detection experiments. We also investigate the ability of paleo-detectors to discriminate between different operator structures and assess their prospects for dark matter mass reconstruction. Our results show that paleo-detectors can achieve sensitivity comparable to, and in some cases exceeding, that of conventional direct-detection experiments across a wide range of dark matter masses, with particularly strong sensitivity to particles of O(1 GeV). Finally, we discuss the broader physics reach of paleo-detectors, including their potential to probe neutrino (atmospheric, supernova, and solar) physics by comparing minerals of different ages, thereby accessing the time evolution of these signals.
| Other topic / keywords: | Dark matter direct detection |
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