PNNL

Abstract

Abstract Follows: C. E. Aalseth,1 P. S. Barbeau,2 D. G. Cerdeño,3 J. Colaresi,4 J. I. Collar,2 P. de Lurgio,5 G. Drake,5 J. E. Fast,1 C. H. Greenberg,2 T. W. Hossbach,1 J. D. Kephart,1 M. G. Marino,7 H. S. Miley,1 J. L. Orrell,1 D. Reyna,6 R. G. H. Robertson,7 R. L. Talaga,5 O. Tench,4 T. D. Van Wechel,7 J. F. Wilkerson,7 and K. M. Yocum4 (CoGeNT Collaboration) 1Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington 99352, USA 2Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics and Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA 3Departamento de Física Teórica C-XI & Instituto de Física Teórica UAM-CSIC, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Cantoblanco, E-28049 Madrid, Spain 4CANBERRA Industries, Meriden, Connecticut 06450, USA 5Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439, USA 6Sandia National Laboratories, Livermore, California 94550, USA 7Center for Experimental Nuclear Physics and Astrophysics, and Department of Physics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA Received 7 July 2008; revised 6 August 2008; published 17 December 2008 A claim for evidence of dark matter interactions in the DAMA experiment has been recently reinforced. We employ a new type of germanium detector to conclusively rule out a standard isothermal galactic halo of weakly interacting massive particles as the explanation for the annual modulation effect leading to the claim. Bounds are similarly imposed on a suggestion that dark pseudoscalars might lead to the effect. We describe the sensitivity to light dark matter particles achievable with our device, in particular, to next-to-minimal supersymmetric model candidates.