Earth-scattering induced modulation data for low-threshold dark matter experiments
Data files
Jul 31, 2025 version files 2.47 GB
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modulated.zip
2.12 GB
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rates.zip
348.56 MB
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README.md
3.07 KB
Abstract
Dark matter particles with sufficiently large cross sections can interact with the bulk matter of the Earth and scatter before reaching a detector. This would induce a modulation signal with the period of a sidereal day. We calculate these distorted velocity distributions for sub-GeV dark matter particles that interact with a heavy or ultralight dark photon mediators in silicon, xenon, and argon-based detectors. This data set consists of the calculated distorted velocity distributions, as well as the modulated rates used in our study. This data set was used to investigate the properties of a modulation signal, as well as provide projected sensitivities for experiments searching for this effect. We find that searching for a modulation signal can probe new regions of parameter space in regions where experiments typically have been limited by backgrounds.
Dataset DOI: 10.5061/dryad.8pk0p2p19
Description of the data and file structure
Dark Matter Daily Modulation Data
Halo data was generated using Verne (https://github.com/bradkav/verne) and DaMaSCUS (https://github.com/temken/DaMaSCUS).
To be used with the following repository:
https://github.com/ande8412/DarkMatterRates/
Files and variables
modulated.zip
- FDM1
- DaMaSCUS
- DaMaSCUS_long
- Verne
- Verne_summer
- FDMq2
- DaMaSCUS
- DaMaSCUS_long
- Verne
- mDMsigmaE_cm2
- txt files
- mDMsigmaE_cm2
- Verne_summer
This zip file contains the modulated halo data for a heavy mediator (in subfolder FDM1) and light mediator (in subfolder FDMq2). Taking FDM1 as an example, if you open this folder you should see 4 additional folders, that contain results from either DaMaSCUS or Verne. There exists data for Verne based on calculations for March, and data for Verne based on calculations for June (the subfolder is named Vernesummer). Let's take Verne as an example. Opening leads to subfolders titled by dark matter mass and dm-electron cross section. Opening these folders you will see text files titled DM_Eta_theta_x.txt, wherex is an integer from 0 to 36. These are the integrated velocity distributions for isoangles 0-180 degress spaced by 5 degrees (so DM_Eta_theta_0.txt corresponds to an isoangle of 0 degrees, and DM_Eta_theta_35.txt corresponds to an isoangle of 180 degrees. Inside these text files are two columns separated by a tab, where the first column is vmin [km/s] and the second column is eta [s/km]. DaMaSCUS data has a third column, where the third column is statistical error on eta [s/m].
The difference between DaMaSCUS and DaMascus long is that Damascus long contains isoangles in steps of 1 rather than 5 (meaning the subfolders will contain 180 txt files instead of 36).
To use this data to reproduce figures from our analysis, copy the contents of this folder into the modulated subdirectory of DarkMatterRates/halo_data/
- DarkMatterRates
- halo_data
- modulated
- copy contents here!
- modulated
- halo_data
rates.zip
This folder contains the calculated rates in csv files in units of events/kg/day from 1-10electrons for all combinations for form factors, screening vs non screened rates, Verne, and DamaSCUS. Each csv contains 10 columns and 36 rows, the columns denote which electron bin (first column is 1e, etc) and the row denotes isoangle (0 -180 degrees in steps of 5). To use these, copy these into the subfolder modulation_study in dark matter rates
- DarkMatterRates
- modulation_study
- copy contents here!
- modulation_study
Code/software
See https://github.com/ande8412/DarkMatterRates/ and documentation therein.
Access information
Data was calculated using the following sources:
- Verne
- DaMaSCUS
The data here consists of simulated velocity distributions using DaMaSCUS (https://github.com/temken/DaMaSCUS) as well as analytic approximations with Verne (https://github.com/bradkav/verne), for both the heavy and light mediator cases. It also includes rates calculated with https://github.com/ande8412/DarkMatterRates). This data set is meant to be concurrently used with the latter github repository, as it contains all the calculations used in our paper.
To use this, paste the contents of the "modulated" folder in the halo_data folder in the DarkMatterRates github repository, and paste the contents of the "rates" folder inside the directory modulation_study of the same repository. Further instructions are contained in the repository itself.