Crystal Defects: A Portal To Dark Matter Detection

Abstract: We propose to use the defect creation energy loss in commonly used high energy physics solid state detectors as a tool to statistically identify dark matter signal from background. We simulate the energy loss in the process of defect creation using density functional theory and molecular dynamics methods and calculate the corresponding expected dark matter spectra. We show that in phonon-mediated solid state detectors, the energy loss due to defect creation convolved with the expected dark matter interaction signal results in a significant change in the expected spectra for common detector materials. With recent progress towards $\sim$10 eV threshold low-mass dark matter searches, this variation in expected dark matter spectrum can be used as a direct signature of dark matter interactions with atomic nuclei.