GeV WIMPs scattering off of OH impurities cannot explain the DAMA signal

Abstract

In the presence of OH impurities in the DAMA crystals, GeV-scale WIMPs elastically scattering off of hydrogen nuclei with a spin independent cross section of $\sim 10^{-33}{\mathrm{cm}}^2$ might explain the annual modulation observed by the DAMA experiment, while being consistent with other direct dark matter searches, as scattering would occur at energies below the energy threshold of other detectors. In this work we examine this possibility and show that, independent of the level of OH impurities in the DAMA crystals, for several reasons this scenario does not provide a viable explanation to the DAMA signal.

Comments: 5 pages, 3 figures. Accepted for publication in JCAP