The CRESST experiment is a direct dark matter search which aims to measure interactions of potential dark matter particles in an Earth-bound detector. With the current stage, CRESST-III, we focus on ...a low energy threshold for increased sensitivity towards light dark matter particles. In this paper we describe the analysis of one detector operated in the first run of CRESST-III (05/2016–02/2018) achieving a nuclear recoil threshold of 30.1 eV. This result was obtained with a 23.6 g CaWO4 crystal operated as a cryogenic scintillating calorimeter in the CRESST setup at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS). Both the primary phonon (heat) signal and the simultaneously emitted scintillation light, which is absorbed in a separate silicon-on-sapphire light absorber, are measured with highly sensitive transition edge sensors operated at ∼15 mK. The unique combination of these sensors with the light element oxygen present in our target yields sensitivity to dark matter particle masses as low as 160 MeV/c2.
Models for light dark matter particles with masses below 1 GeV/c Formula omitted are a natural and well-motivated alternative to so-far unobserved weakly interacting massive particles. Gram-scale ...cryogenic calorimeters provide the required detector performance to detect these particles and extend the direct dark matter search program of CRESST. A prototype 0.5 g sapphire detector developed for the Formula omitted-cleus experiment has achieved an energy threshold of Formula omitted eV. This is one order of magnitude lower than for previous devices and independent of the type of particle interaction. The result presented here is obtained in a setup above ground without significant shielding against ambient and cosmogenic radiation. Although operated in a high-background environment, the detector probes a new range of light-mass dark matter particles previously not accessible by direct searches. We report the first limit on the spin-independent dark matter particle-nucleon cross section for masses between 140 and 500 MeV/c Formula omitted.
We discuss a small-scale experiment, called
ν
-cleus, for the first detection of coherent neutrino–nucleus scattering by probing nuclear-recoil energies down to the 10 eV regime. The detector ...consists of low-threshold CaWO
4
and Al
2
O
3
calorimeter arrays with a total mass of about 10 g and several cryogenic veto detectors operated at millikelvin temperatures. Realizing a fiducial volume and a multi-element target, the detector enables active discrimination of
γ
, neutron and surface backgrounds. A first prototype Al
2
O
3
device, operated above ground in a setup without shielding, has achieved an energy threshold of
∼
20
eV and further improvements are in reach. A sensitivity study for the detection of coherent neutrino scattering at nuclear power plants shows a unique discovery potential (5
σ
) within a measuring time of
≲
2
weeks. Furthermore, a site at a thermal research reactor and the use of a radioactive neutrino source are investigated. With this technology, real-time monitoring of nuclear power plants is feasible.
The CRESST-II experiment uses cryogenic detectors to search for nuclear recoil events induced by the elastic scattering of dark matter particles in CaWO
4
crystals. Given the low energy threshold of ...our detectors in combination with light target nuclei, low mass dark matter particles can be probed with high sensitivity. In this letter we present the results from data of a single detector module corresponding to 52 kg live days. A blind analysis is carried out. With an energy threshold for nuclear recoils of 307 eV we substantially enhance the sensitivity for light dark matter. Thereby, we extend the reach of direct dark matter experiments to the sub- GeV/
c
2
region and demonstrate that the energy threshold is the key parameter in the search for low mass dark matter particles.
The energy threshold of a cryogenic calorimeter can be lowered by reducing its size. This is of importance since the resulting increase in signal rate enables new approaches in rare-event searches, ...including the detection of MeV mass dark matter and coherent scattering of reactor or solar neutrinos. A scaling law for energy threshold vs detector size is given. We analyze the possibility of lowering the threshold of a gram-scale cryogenic calorimeter to the few eV regime. A prototype 0.5 g Al2O3 device achieved an energy threshold of Eth=(19.7±0.9) eV, the lowest value reported for a macroscopic calorimeter.
CRESST is a direct dark matter search experiment, aiming for an observation of nuclear recoils induced by the interaction of dark matter particles with cryogenic scintillating calcium tungstate ...crystals. Instead of confining ourselves to standard spin-independent and spin-dependent searches, we re-analyze data from CRESST-II using a more general effective field theory (EFT) framework. On many of the EFT coupling constants, improved exclusion limits in the low-mass region (< 3–4 GeV/
c
2
) are presented.
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