Release of the First Results on Dark Matter Annual Modulation from ANAIS-112 experiment

ANAIS experiment is taking data at the Canfranc Underground Laboratory in Spain since August 2017 aiming at testing the puzzling observation by the DAMA/LIBRA experiment of an annual modulation compatible with that expected for dark matter halo particles for about two decades.

First results on dark matter annual modulation from ANAIS-112 experiment are just released and can be found in http://arxiv.org/abs/1903.03973. It has been submitted to be considered for publication in Physical Review Letters.

It presents the first model independent testing of the DAMA/LIBRA result: 1.5 years from ANAIS-112 experiment, using 112.5 kg of sodium iodide as target, have been analyzed searching for modulation. Results are compatible with the absence of modulation and incompatible with DAMA/LIBRA signal at 90% C.L. Results confirm our goal of reaching a 3 sigma sensitivity in 3.5 more years of data-taking.

Before unblinding the data, the whole analysis procedure was fixed (http://arxiv.org/abs/1812.01472, accepted for publication in Eur. Phys. J. C), the background thoroughly studied (http://arxiv.org/abs/1812.01377, review procedure is in progress for publication in Eur. Phys. J. C) and the expected sensitivity evaluated (http://arxiv.org/abs/1812.02000, accepted for publication in Eur. Phys. J. C).