Halo-independence with quantified maximum entropy at DAMA/LIBRA

Abstract

Using the DAMA/LIBRA anomaly as an example, we formalise the notion of halo-independence in the context of Bayesian statistics and quantified maximum entropy. We consider an infinite set of possible protalks/, weighted by an entropic prior and constrained by a likelihood describing noisy measurements of modulated moments by DAMA/LIBRA. We find the most plausible dark matter (DM) profiles and predictions for unmodulated signal rates at DAMA/LIBRA. The entropic prior contains an a priori unknown regularisation factor, $\beta$, that describes the strength of our conviction that the profile is approximately Maxwellian. By varying $\beta$, we smoothly interpolate between a halo-independent and a halo-dependent analysis, thus exploring the impact of prior information about the DM profile.

Date
Event
Location
Kavli IMPU, Tokyo
Andrew Fowlie
Junior Faculty

My research interests include particle physics and statistics.