On the DAMA and CoGeNT Modulations

Abstract

DAMA observes an annual modulation in their event rate, as might be expected from dark matter scatterings, while CoGeNT has reported evidence for a similar modulation. The simplest interpretation of these findings in terms of dark matter-nucleus scatterings is excluded by other direct detection experiments. We consider the robustness of these exclusions with respect to assumptions regarding the scattering and find that isospin-violating inelastic dark matter helps alleviate this tension and allows marginal compatibility between experiments. Isospin-violation can significantly weaken the XENON constraints, while inelasticity enhances the annual modulation fraction of the signal, bringing the CoGeNT and CDMS results into better agreement.