XXth International Conference on Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics
J.Morales
Improved Constraints on WIMPs from the International
Germanium Experiment IGEX
One IGEX 76Ge double-beta decay detector is currently operating in the
Canfranc Underground Laboratory in a search for dark matter WIMPs,
through the Ge nuclear recoil produced by the WIMP elastic
scattering. A new exclusion plot has been derived for WIMP-nucleon
spin-independent interactions. To obtain this result, 40 days of data
from the IGEX detector (energy threshold about 4 keV), recently
collected, have been analyzed. These data improve the exclusion
limits derived from all the other ionization germanium detectors in
the mass region from 20 to 200 GeV, where a WIMP supposedly
responsible for the annual modulation effect reported by DAMA
experiment would be located. The new IGEX exclusion contour enters, by
the first time, the DAMA region by using only raw data, with no
background discrimination, and excludes its upper left part. It is
also shown that with a moderate improvement of the detector
performances, the DAMA region could be fully explored.
Based on
"New constraints on WIMPs from the Canfranc IGEX dark matter search",
Phys. Lett. B 489 (2000) 268.
"Improved constraints on wimps from the international germanium experiment
IGEX", to be published in Phys. Lett. B (2002).