• DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.081805
• Corpus ID: 227054155

Migdal Effect in Semiconductors.

@article{Knapen2020MigdalEI,
  title={Migdal Effect in Semiconductors.},
  author={Simon Knapen and Jonathan Kozaczuk and Tongyan Lin},
  journal={Physical review letters},
  year={2020},
  volume={127 8},
  pages={
          081805
        }
}

• S. Knapen, J. Kozaczuk, Tongyan Lin
• Published 18 November 2020
• Physics
• Physical review letters

When a nucleus in an atom undergoes a collision, there is a small probability of an electron being excited inelastically as a result of the Migdal effect. In this Letter, we present the first complete derivation of the Migdal effect from dark matter-nucleus scattering in semiconductors, which also accounts for multiphonon production. The rate of the Migdal effect can be expressed in terms of the energy loss function of the material, which we calculate with density functional theory methods. Because of the smaller gap for electron excitations, we find that the rate for the Migdal effect is much higher in semiconductors than in atomic targets. Accounting for the Migdal effect in semiconductors can therefore significantly improve the sensitivity of experiments such as DAMIC, SENSEI, and SuperCDMS to sub-GeV dark matter.