Particle dark matter and solar axion searches with a small germanium detector at the Canfranc Underground Laboratory

A small, natural abundance, germanium detector (COSME) has been operating recently at the Canfranc Underground Laboratory (Spanish Pyrenees) in improved conditions of shielding and overburden with respect to a previous operation of the same detector (Nucl. Instrum. Meth. A 321 (1992) 410; Phys. Rev. D 51 (1995) 1458). An exposure of 72.7 kg day in these conditions has at present a background improvement of about one order of magnitude compared to the former operation of the detector. These new data have been applied to a direct search for weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) and solar axions. New WIMP exclusion plots improving the current bounds for low masses are reported. The paper also presents a limit on the axion-photon coupling obtained from the analysis of the data looking for a Primakoff axion-to-photon conversion and Bragg scattering inside the crystal. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.