Investigation of light dark matter with 2$$\beta $$ decay experiments

Abstract

AbstractNuclei that are unstable with respect to double beta decay are investigated in this work for a novel dark matter (DM) direct detection approach. In particular, the diagram responsible for the neutrinoless double beta decay can be considered for the possible detection technique of a Majorana DM fermion inelastically scattering on a double beta unstable nucleus, stimulating its decay. The exothermic nature of the stimulated double beta decay would allow the direct detection also of a light DM fermion, a class of DM candidates that are difficult or impossible to investigate with the traditional elastic scattering techniques. The expected signal distribution for different DM masses and the upper limits on the nucleus scattering cross sections, are shown and compared with the existing data for the case of $$^{136}$$ 136 Xe nucleus.