Are DAMA-region NaI events nuclear or electron recoils? · revision history
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Accepted · first revision · record
- Title
- Are DAMA-region NaI events nuclear or electron recoils?
- Plain
- A dark matter particle would mostly knock a nucleus, while radioactivity mostly knocks electrons. A cooled sodium iodide detector that measures both heat and light can tell these apart.
- Precise
- Conventional NaI(Tl) scintillators cannot discriminate nuclear from electron recoils at 1-6 keVee. A cryogenic NaI scintillating calorimeter (COSINUS at LNGS) reads phonon and scintillation channels, giving recoil-type discrimination event by event. The question is the composition of the 1-6 keVee rate in NaI and whether any modulating component is nuclear-recoil-like.
- Settled by
- A COSINUS-type measurement with nuclear-electron recoil discrimination and enough exposure to test the DAMA rate and modulation in the nuclear-recoil band.
- Kind
- well-posed
- Answer type
- classification
- References
- (empty)
- Literature status
- open
- Status note
- COSINUS-1pi Run 1 with eight cryogenic NaI modules at LNGS was planned to start data taking in 2026 (Commun. Phys. 9, 213, 2026); no result yet.
- Posed since
- (empty)