First Constraints from DAMIC-M on Sub-GeV Dark-Matter Particles Interacting with Electrons

• Published in: Physical review letters 2023-04, Vol.130 (17), p.171003-171003, Article 171003
• Main Authors: Arnquist, I, Avalos, N, Baxter, D, Bertou, X, Castelló-Mor, N, Chavarria, A E, Cuevas-Zepeda, J, Gutiérrez, J Cortabitarte, Duarte-Campderros, J, Dastgheibi-Fard, A, Deligny, O, De Dominicis, C, Estrada, E, Gadola, N, Gaïor, R, Hossbach, T, Iddir, L, Khalil, L, Kilminster, B, Lantero-Barreda, A, Lawson, I, Lee, S, Letessier-Selvon, A, Loaiza, P, Lopez-Virto, A, Matalon, A, Munagavalasa, S, McGuire, K J, Mitra, P, Norcini, D, Papadopoulos, G, Paul, S, Piers, A, Privitera, P, Ramanathan, K, Robmann, P, Settimo, M, Smida, R, Thomas, R, Traina, M, Vila, I, Vilar, R, Warot, G, Yajur, R, Zopounidis, J-P
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0031-9007; 1079-7114
• DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.171003

We report constraints on sub-GeV dark matter particles interacting with electrons from the first underground operation of DAMIC-M detectors. The search is performed with an integrated exposure of 85.23 g days, and exploits the subelectron charge resolution and low level of dark current of DAMIC-M charge-coupled devices (CCDs). Dark-matter-induced ionization signals above the detector dark current are searched for in CCD pixels with charge up to 7e^{-}. With this dataset we place limits on dark matter particles of mass between 0.53 and 1000  MeV/c^{2}, excluding unexplored regions of parameter space in the mass ranges [1.6,1000]  MeV/c^{2} and [1.5,15.1]  MeV/c^{2} for ultralight and heavy mediator interactions, respectively.