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Search for low-mass electron-recoil dark matter using a single-charge sensitive SuperCDMS-HVeV Detector

SuperCDMS Collaboration, M. F. Albakry, I. Alkhatib, D. Alonso-González, J. Anczarski, T. Aralis, T. Aramaki, I. Ataee Langroudy, C. Bathurst, R. Bhattacharyya, A. J. Biffl, P. L. Brink, M. Buchanan, R. Bunker, B. Cabrera, R. Calkins, R. A. Cameron, C. Cartaro, D. G. Cerdeño, Y. -Y. Chang, M. Chaudhuri, J. -H. Chen, R. Chen, N. Chott, J. Cooley, H. Coombes, P. Cushman, R. Cyna, S. Das, S. Dharani, M. L. di Vacri, M. D. Diamond, M. Elwan, S. Fallows, E. Fascione, E. Figueroa-Feliciano, S. L. Franzen, A. Gevorgian, M. Ghaith, G. Godden, J. Golatkar, S. R. Golwala, R. Gualtieri, J. Hall, S. A. S. Harms, C. Hays, B. A. Hines, Z. Hong, L. Hsu, M. E. Huber, V. Iyer, V. K. S. Kashyap, S. T. D. Keller, M. H. Kelsey, K. T. Kennard, Z. Kromer, A. Kubik, N. A. Kurinsky, M. Lee, J. Leyva, B. Lichtenberg, J. Liu, Y. Liu, E. Lopez Asamar, P. Lukens, R. López Noé, D. B. MacFarlane, R. Mahapatra, J. S. Mammo, N. Mast, A. J. Mayer, P. C. McNamara, H. Meyer zu Theenhausen, É. Michaud, E. Michielin, K. Mickelson, N. Mirabolfathi, M. Mirzakhani, B. Mohanty, D. Mondal, D. Monteiro, J. Nelson, H. Neog, V. Novati, J. L. Orrell, M. D. Osborne, S. M. Oser, L. Pandey, S. Pandey, R. Partridge, P. K. Patel, D. S. Pedreros, W. Peng, W. L. Perry, R. Podviianiuk, M. Potts, S. S. Poudel, A. Pradeep, M. Pyle, W. Rau, R. Ren, T. Reynolds, M. Rios, A. Roberts, A. E. Robinson, L. Rosado Del Rio, J. L. Ryan, T. Saab, D. Sadek, B. Sadoulet, S. P. Sahoo, I. Saikia, S. Salehi, J. Sander, B. Sandoval, A. Sattari, B. Schmidt, R. W. Schnee, B. Serfass, A. E. Sharbaugh, R. S. Shenoy, A. Simchony, P. Sinervo, Z. J. Smith, R. Soni, K. Stifter, J. Street, M. Stukel, H. Sun, E. Tanner, N. Tenpas, D. Toback, A. N. Villano, J. Viol, B. von Krosigk, Y. Wang, O. Wen, Z. Williams, M. J. Wilson, J. Winchell, S. Yellin, B. A. Young, B. Zatschler, S. Zatschler, A. Zaytsev, E. Zhang, L. Zheng, A. Zuniga, M. J. Zurowski

Abstract

We present constraints on low-mass dark matter electron scattering and absorption interactions using a SuperCDMS high-voltage eV-resolution (HVeV) detector. Data were taken underground in the NEXUS facility located at Fermilab with an overburden of 225 meters of water equivalent. The experiment benefits from the minimizing of luminescence from the printed circuit boards in the detector holder used in all previous HVeV studies. A blind analysis of $6.1\,\mathrm{g\cdot days}$ of exposure produces exclusion limits for dark matter-electron scattering cross sections for masses as low as $1\,\mathrm{MeV}/c^2$, as well as on the photon-dark photon mixing parameter and the coupling constant between axionlike particles and electrons for particles with masses $>1.2\,\mathrm{eV}/c^2$ probed via absorption processes.

Search for low-mass electron-recoil dark matter using a single-charge sensitive SuperCDMS-HVeV Detector

Abstract

We present constraints on low-mass dark matter electron scattering and absorption interactions using a SuperCDMS high-voltage eV-resolution (HVeV) detector. Data were taken underground in the NEXUS facility located at Fermilab with an overburden of 225 meters of water equivalent. The experiment benefits from the minimizing of luminescence from the printed circuit boards in the detector holder used in all previous HVeV studies. A blind analysis of of exposure produces exclusion limits for dark matter-electron scattering cross sections for masses as low as , as well as on the photon-dark photon mixing parameter and the coupling constant between axionlike particles and electrons for particles with masses probed via absorption processes.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 8 sections, 4 equations, 3 figures, 1 table.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Experimental Setup
  3. Data Collection and Event Reconstruction
  4. Calibration and Detector Response Modeling
  5. Data Selection
  6. Signal Models
  7. Results
  8. Discussion and Outlook

Figures (3)

  • Figure 1: LED calibration data for detector NFC1 and the best-fit photon hit model Wilson_2024 for the $A_{\textup{OF}}$ energy estimator. The 0 eh-pair peak is distorted in this $A_{\textup{OF}}$ amplitude spectrum due to noise fluctuations affecting the OF time offset. The fit is limited to the first five eh-pair peaks because of limited statistics for higher-order peaks.
  • Figure 2: The blue histogram shows the event rate for the HVeV Run 4 DM-search data after live-time and event-based data selection. The HVeV Run 3 data, after applying all data selection algorithms used in HVeV Run 3, are also shown in orange for comparison. The red curve shows an example of a DM-electron recoil signal model for DM particles with a mass of $3.5\,\mathrm{MeV}/c^2$ interacting through the exchange of a light mediator with a scattering cross section of $2.9 \times 10^{-33}\,\mathrm{cm^2}$. The signal model is shown for the cross section value corresponding to the $90\,\%$ confidence level upper limit produced in this work. The gray-shaded energy range is not considered in this analysis.
  • Figure 3: The $90\%$ confidence level exclusion limits from this work (black lines) calculated while ignoring the effects of overburden in comparison with results from other experiments supercdmscollaboration2024lightdarkmatterconstraintsSENSEI:2023zdfarnaud2020firstcheng2021searchXENON:2024zncDAMIC-M:2025luv (colored lines) for the $\chi$-electron scattering cross section with DM form factor $F_{\mathrm{DM}} = 1$ (upper left) and $F_{\mathrm{DM}} \propto 1/q^2$ (upper right), the dark photon kinetic mixing parameter (bottom left) and the axioelectric coupling constant (bottom right). The gray shaded regions in the top plots indicate the estimated exclusion boundaries when considering overburden attenuation emken2019direct.