Constraints on low-mass, relic dark matter candidates from a surface-operated SuperCDMS single-charge sensitive detector
This article presents an analysis and the resulting limits on light dark matter inelastically scattering off of electrons, and on dark photon and axionlike particle absorption, using a second-generation SuperCDMS high-voltage eV-resolution detector. The 0.93 g Si detector achieved a 3 eV phonon energy resolution; for a detector bias of 100 V, this corresponds to a charge resolution of 3% of a single electron-hole pair. The energy spectrum is reported from a blind analysis with 1.2 g-days of exposure acquired in an above-ground laboratory. With charge carrier trapping and impact ionization effects incorporated into the dark matter signal models, the dark matter-electron cross section σ ¯ e is constrained for dark matter masses from 0.5 to 10 4 MeV / c 2 ; in the mass range from 1.2 to 50 eV / c 2 the dark photon kinetic mixing parameter ϵ and the axioelectric coupling constant g a e are constrained. The minimum 90% confidence-level upper limits within the above-mentioned mass ranges are σ ¯ e = 8.7 × 10 - 34 cm 2 , ϵ = 3.3 × 10 - 14 , and g a e = 1.0 × 10 - 9 .