Annual Modulation in Direct Dark Matter Searches

Abstract: The measurement of an annual modulation in the event rate of direct dark matter detection experiments is a powerful tool for dark matter discovery. Indeed, several experiments have already claimed such a discovery in the past decade. While most of them have later revoked their conclusions, and others have found potentially contradictory results, one still stands today. This paper explains the potential as well as the challenges of annual modulation measurements, and gives an overview of past, present and future direct detection experiments.