Why should photomultipliers be in phase with the Earth’s motion w.r.t the Galactic center?

Maybe we could agree that they see a signal compatible with something symmetrically distributed w.r.t. our Galaxy.

My personal opionion is that their major problem is the lack of evidence from other passive detection experiments.

you can find more pictures of Palazzo Franchetti here…

Cheers,
T.

Yes, I did listen to the talk about the DAMA-LIBRA experiment.
And indeed, they claim to have a 8.2-sigma signal of a yearly oscillation in the signal yield. This is compatible with a dark matter candidate with an energy release in the 3-6 keV range.

I must say I did not foresee to discuss that result, however, for two reasons. One is that the talk was poor – besides the bad English, the speaker presented far too heavy slides, and gave a rather sloppy presentation. She also did not allow questioners to speak, talking over them very aggressively as they asked for details of the efficiency curve – which rises steeply right in the region where a signal is seen – or about models that could fit the picture – the cut at 2 keV does not allow DAMA to discriminate different DM candidates. It made me mutter to my grad student, sitting next to me “small experiments make cocky speakers”.
The other reason is that I did not pay much attention to it. My fault, but when a 40′ talk is of poor quality my attention span quickly drops, and the wireless connection in the conference room unfortunately worked embarassingly well…

However, since you ask: yes, a signal is there. The fourier analysis shows a clear component with yearly frequency. I believe the result is on solid ground. I am more skeptical about the interpretation: yes, DM fits in. But I would not be too surprised if DAMA ended up having discovered a yearly variation in their photomultiplier response.

Cheers,
T.

http://neutrino.pd.infn.it/NO-VE2008/Talks/Bernabei.ppt

From a very quick read it look like they still see the annual modulation in their event rate (slide 24) and at a higher significance than before. Plenty about the stability of the experiment – which might affect the signal. No comparison with the current limits from CDMS and XENON – although I think given they see the same modulation the discrepancy, for WIMPs at least, is still there.

Cheers,

Mendo.

There have been rumors that the DAMA-LIBRA experiment would be making claims of detection of dark matter in their talk at the conference today. Any news about this?