"Annual modulation in direct dark matter searches" - Froborg and Duffy (2020)
Alan Duffy
A mammoth undertaking with my colleague Dr Francis Froborg to write a review on dark matter detection methods covering 230 other articles, focussed on the annual modulation as the Earth goes around the Sun and apparent strength of the dark matter headwind changes over the seasons. Accepted in the Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics and available to all on arXiv. Also my thanks to the incredible James Josephides of Swinburne Astronomy Productions for his beautiful and informative infographic!
The measurement of an annual modulation in the event rate of direct dark matter detection experiments is a powerful tool for dark matter discovery. Indeed, several experiments have already claimed such a discovery in the past decade. While most of them have later revoked their conclusions, and others have found potentially contradictory results, one still stands today. This paper explains the potential as well as the challenges of annual modulation measurements, and gives an overview on past, present and future direct detection experiments.