DAMA confronts null searches in the effective theory of dark matter-nucleon interactions

Understand

We examine the dark matter interpretation of the modulation signal reported by the DAMA experiment from the perspective of effective field theories displaying Galilean invariance.

• We consider the most general effective coupling leading to the elastic scattering of a dark matter particle with spin 0 or 1/2 off a nucleon, and we analyze the compatibility of the DAMA signal with the null results from other direct detection experiments, as well as with the non-observation of a high energy neutrino flux in the direction of the Sun from dark matter annihilation.
• To this end, we develop a novel semi-analytical approach for comparing experimental results in the high-dimensional parameter space of the non-relativistic effective theory.
• Assuming the standard halo model, we find a strong tension between the dark matter interpretation of the DAMA modulation signal and the null result experiments.