Speaker
Description
Novel target materials with anisotropic response will play a key role in
detecting low-mass dark matter in upcoming experiments. Bilayer graphene is one
such material that has been proposed for the detection of sub-MeV mass dark
matter particles via electronic excitations. In this work, we calculate
scattering rate via a massive mediator in bilayer graphene. With an exposure as
small as $\sim$ 0.5 mg-year, bilayer graphene can probe new regions of the
parameter space. The anisotropic response function of bilayer graphene leads to
a sidereal-day modulation in the scattering rate, depending on its orientation
with respect to the Galactic dark matter wind. We find significant modulation
in the scattering rate for sub-MeV mass dark matter, demonstrating bilayer
graphene's promise for a future experiment. We hope that our work will motivate
the community to investigate bilayer graphene as a novel target material, and
that it may lead us to discover the particle nature of dark matter.