Scintillating low-temperature calorimeters for direct dark matter search

Abstract

The lack of an unambiguous signal for thermally produced dark matter particles (e.g. WIMPs) in direct detection, indirect detection and collider searches necessitates broadening the strategy, now reaching from keV/c2 to the TeV/c2 scale. Low-temperature detectors have proven to provide the required performance to extend the experimental efforts to lower DM masses < 1 GeV/c2. Using scintillation light as an ancillary channel is a powerful tool for particle identification and background suppression at the keV-recoil energy scale. The CRESST-III experiment, employing scintillating cryogenic detectors with highly sensitive transition edge sensors and multi-target absorber crystals, achieved unprecedented sensitivities to explore sub-GeV dark matter masses. COSINUS, instead, is a new experiment exploiting the phonon-light technique using sodium iodide crystals with the scope to clarify the long-lasting dark matter claim of the DAMA/LIBRA collaboration. This article reviews the principle of scintillating low-temperature calorimeters with emphasis on the benefits and challenges of this technique for direct dark matter searches in light of the current status and future developments.