Directional Dark Matter Detection Beyond the Neutrino Bound

Abstract: Coherent scattering of solar, atmospheric and diffuse supernovae neutrinos creates an irreducible background for direct dark matter experiments with sensitivities to WIMP-nucleon spin-independent scattering cross-sections of 10^-46-10^-48 cm^2, depending on the WIMP mass. Even if one could eliminate all other backgrounds, this "neutrino floor" will limit future experiments with projected sensitivities to cross-sections as small as 10^-48 cm^2. Direction-sensitive detectors have the potential to study dark matter beyond the neutrino bound by fitting event distributions in multiple dimensions: recoil kinetic energy, recoil track angle with respect to the sun, and event time. This work quantitatively explores the impact of direction-sensitivity on the neutrino bound in dark matter direct detection.