Theory HEP Seminar

Shedding (sun)light on dark matter direct detection

Josef Pradler

Perimeter Institute

In this talk we explore mundane and not so mundane origins of reported “anomalies” in direct detection experiments. Based on the model proposed in arXiv:1103.3261 we first consider a scenario in which a sterile neutrino species is active under a new U(1)_b gauge force. Coming from the sun, these “baryonic” neutrinos can induce nuclear recoil signals in direct detection experiments. In particular we show that the model can lead to a modulated signal in rough agreement with the DAMA claim and can also account for CoGeNT as well as for the recently reported CRESST results. On a different note, we offer some comments on recently suggested background hypotheses for DAMA.