https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-022-10140-3
Letter
Probing spin-dependent dark matter interactions with 
Li
CRESST Collaboration
1
Max-Planck-Institut für Physik, 80805, Munich, Germany
2
INFN, Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, 67100, Assergi, Italy
3
Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics, Comenius University, 84248, Bratislava, Slovakia
4
Physik-Department and ORIGINS Excellence Cluster, Technische Universität München, 85747, Garching, Germany
5
Institut für Hochenergiephysik der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1050, Wien, Austria
6
Atominstitut, Technische Universität Wien, 1020, Wien, Austria
7
Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, 72076, Tübingen, Germany
8
Department of Physics, University of Oxford, OX1 3RH, Oxford, UK
9
LIBPhys-UC, Departamento de Fisica, Universidade de Coimbra, P3004 516, Coimbra, Portugal
10
Walther-Meißner-Institut für Tieftemperaturforschung, 85748, Garching, Germany
11
Excellence Cluster Origins, 85748, Garching, Germany
12
GSSI-Gran Sasso Science Institute, 67100, L’Aquila, Italy
13
Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile e Meccanica, Universitá degli Studi di Cassino e del Lazio Meridionale, 03043, Cassino, Italy
d
bertoldo@mpp.mpg.de
ag
mancuso@mpp.mpg.de
Received:
30
November
2021
Accepted:
15
February
2022
Published online:
9
March
2022
CRESST is one of the most prominent direct detection experiments for dark matter particles with sub-GeV/c
mass. One of the advantages of the CRESST experiment is the possibility to include a large variety of nuclides in the target material used to probe dark matter interactions. In this work, we discuss in particular the interactions of dark matter particles with protons and neutrons of 
Li. This is now possible thanks to new calculations on nuclear matrix elements of this specific isotope of Li. To show the potential of using this particular nuclide for probing dark matter interactions, we used the data collected previously by a CRESST prototype based on LiAlO
and operated in an above ground test-facility at Max-Planck-Institut für Physik in Munich, Germany. In particular, the inclusion of Li in the limit calculation drastically improves the result obtained for spin-dependent interactions with neutrons in the whole mass range. The improvement is significant, greater than two order of magnitude for dark matter masses below 1 GeV/c, compared to the limit previously published with the same data.
© The Author(s) 2022
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Funded by SCOAP3
