ANAIS-112 sensitivity in the search for dark matter annual modulation

• Main Authors: I. Coarasa, J. Amaré, S. Cebrián, C. Cuesta, E. García, M. Martínez, M. A. Oliván, Y. Ortigoza, A. Ortiz de Solórzano, J. Puimedón, A. Salinas, M. L. Sarsa, P. Villar, J. A. Villar
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SpringerOpen 2019-03-01
• Series: European Physical Journal C: Particles and Fields
• Online Access: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1140/epjc/s10052-019-6733-4
• ISSN: 1434-6044; 1434-6052

Abstract The annual modulation measured by the  DAMA/LIBRA experiment can be explained by the interaction of dark matter WIMPs in NaI(Tl) scintillator detectors. Other experiments, with different targets or techniques, exclude the region of parameters singled out by  DAMA/LIBRA,  but the comparison of their results relies on several hypotheses regarding the dark matter model. ANAIS-112 is a dark matter search with 112.5 kg of NaI(Tl) scintillators at the Canfranc Underground Laboratory (LSC) to test the  DAMA/LIBRA  result in a model independent way. We analyze its prospects in terms of the a priori critical and detection limits of the experiment. A simple figure of merit has been obtained to compare the different experiments looking for the annual modulation observed by  DAMA/LIBRA.  We conclude that after 5 years of measurement, ANAIS-112 can detect the annual modulation in the $$3\sigma $$ 3σ region compatible with the DAMA/LIBRA result.