Searching for SUSY Dark Matter The Directional Rate and the Modulation Effect.pdfVIP

SEARCHING FOR SUSY DARK MATTER - THE DIRECTIONAL RATE AND THE MODUALTION EFFECT 0 0 J.D. VERGADOS 0 Theoretical Physics Division, University of Ioannina 2 Ioannina, GR-45110, Greece. t c O Abstract. The direct detection of dark matter is central to particle physics 6 2 and cosmology. Current fashionable supersymmetric models provide a nat- ural dark matter candidate which is the lightest supersymmetric particle 1 (LSP). Such models combined with fairly well understood physics like the v 6 quark substructure of the nucleon and the structure of the nucleus (form 3 factor and/or spin response function), permit the evaluation of the event 5 rate for LSP-nucleus elastic scattering. The thus obtained event rates are, 0 1 however, very low or even undetectable. So it is imperative to exploit char- 0 acteristic signatures, like the modulation effect, i.e. the dependence of the 0 event rate on the earth’s annual motion, and the directional rate, i.e its / h dependence on the direction of the recoiling nucleus. In this paper we do p this using various velocity distributions, isothermal (symmetric as well as - o only axially asymmetric) and non isothermal (e.g. due to caustic rings). r t s a : v i 1. Introduction X r The consideration of exotic dark matter has become necessary in order to a close the Universe [1], [2]. Furthermore in in order to understand the large scale structure of the universe one has to consider matter made up of par- ticles which were non-relativistic at the time of freeze out, i.e cold dark