A New Technique for Detecting Supersymmetric Dark Matter

Abstract

We estimate the event rate for excitation of atomic transition by photino-like dark matter. For excitations of several eV, this event rate can exceed naive cross-section by many orders of magnitude. Although the event rate for these atomic excitation is smaller than that of nuclear recoil off of non-zero spin nuclei, the photons emitted by the deexcitation are easier to detect than low-energy nuclear recoils. For many elements, there are several low-lying states with comparable excitation rates, thus, spectral ratios could be used to distinguish signal from background.