DAMA/LIBRA annual modulation and NaI tests
This text mentions work from 2024 on. Those parts were partly written without a live literature search and have not been checked by an editor yet.
An experiment in Italy called DAMA/LIBRA has seen its event rate rise and fall once a year for over two decades, as expected if Earth moves through a cloud of dark matter while orbiting the Sun. Other experiments with the same crystal material, sodium iodide, see no such yearly change, so the cause of the DAMA signal is unknown.
Why it matters
Either a dark matter signal is hidden in a way no current model explains, or a result claimed at more than $13\,\sigma$ is an instrumental or analysis effect, and both outcomes change how direct detection claims are judged.
Review
N. Carlin et al. (COSINE-100 and ANAIS-112 Collaborations), Combined Annual Modulation Dark Matter Search with COSINE-100 and ANAIS-112, Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 121002, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1103/9j7w-qp1c reference checked
Timestamp record
- Signed record
- bae30d7e0bff…
- Public log
- Entry 239, in checkpoint 2,123
- In the log by
- Block 969,698, 2026-10-03
This text was in the PubPhys log by that date. The date says nothing about when the problem was first posed.