CoGeNT: A Search for Low-Mass Dark Matter using p-type Point Contact Germanium Detectors

By C. Aalseth, P. Barbeau, J. Colaresi, J. Collar, J. Leon, J. Fast, N. Fields, T. Hossbach, A. Knecht, M. Kos and 5 more. 2012

373 citations recorded by the source corpus.

CoGeNT employs $p$-type point-contact (PPC) germanium detectors to search for weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs). By virtue of its low-energy threshold and ability to reject surface backgrounds, this type of device allows an emphasis on low-mass dark matter candidates (${m}_{\ensuremath{\chi}}\ensuremath{\sim}10\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{GeV}/{c}^{2}$). We report on the characteristics of the PPC detector presently taking data at the Soudan Underground Laboratory, elaborating on aspects of shielding, data acquisition, instrumental stability, data analysis, and background estimation. A detailed background model is used to investigate the low-energy excess of events previously reported and to assess the possibility of temporal modulations in the low-energy event rate. Extensive simulations of all presently known backgrounds do not provide a viable background explanation for the excess of low-energy events in the CoGeNT data or the previously observed temporal variation in the event rate. Also reported for the first time is a determination of the surface (slow pulse rise time) event contamination in the data as a function of energy. We conclude that the CoGeNT detector technology is well suited to search for the annual modulation signature expected from dark matter particle interactions in the region of WIMP mass and coupling favored by the DAMA/LIBRA results.

Subfields: Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d76858a917889827a229af9a7ee2a823fca3bf80

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Citations in the corpus

The dark Z′ portal: direct, indirect and collider searches (2013, background): “In particular, the CoGeNT collaboration has claimed to observe a ∼ 2σ modulation consistent with a 8 GeV WIMP scattering off nuclei with a spin independent cross section of 3 − 4 × 10−5 pb [12, 13].”
Dark matter direct-detection experiments (2015, methodology): “detector has acquired, in total, 3.4years of dark matter data in the Soudan Underground Laboratory (see section4.2) enabling a search for dark matter by an annual modulation of the measured event rate[293]. An annual modulation of the rate was found in an energy interval of (0:5 2)keV ee with a phas”
Colloquium: Annual modulation of dark matter (2013, methodology): “The CoGeNT experiment, located in the Soudan mine in Minnesota, consists of 440 g of p-type point-contact (PPC) germanium detectors with a 0.4 keVee energy threshold that makes it particularly well suited to look for light dark matter (Aalseth et al., 2013).”
Higgs Physics at the HL-LHC and HE-LHC (2019, methodology): “In addition we show present limits (solid lines), favoured regions (filled areas) and future sensitivity (dashed lines) of the DM direct detection experiments XENON10 [582], XENON100 [583], XENON1T [584], XENONNT [585], SUPERCDMS at SNOLAB [586], DAMA/LIBRA [587], CRESST [588], CDMS II [589] and COG”