For years, the DAMA experiment stood as one of the most controversial hints of dark matter detection. Now, that claim is under serious pressure. Two independent experiments — COSINE-100 and ANAIS-112 — have failed to reproduce DAMA’s results, casting doubt on what was once seen as a potential breakthrough.
At the center of the debate is a phenomenon called annual modulation — a repeating signal DAMA claimed to detect using sodium iodide (NaI) detectors. By 2018, DAMA reported this signal at an extremely high statistical significance, suggesting it could be linked to dark matter particles interacting with Earth.
But here’s where things shift.
Independent teams working on COSINE-100 (a collaboration across Korea, the US, and the UK) and ANAIS-112 (based in Spain) used the same type of NaI detectors, specifically designed to test DAMA’s findings under similar conditions. If DAMA was right, these experiments should have seen the same modulation.
They didn’t.
ANAIS-112, after analyzing three years of data, found no such signal — disagreeing with DAMA at around the 3σ level. COSINE-100 went even further, using over six years of data, and also reported zero modulation, rejecting DAMA’s claim at greater than 3σ significance.
When researchers combined both datasets in a recent analysis, the result was even clearer: the modulation amplitude was consistent with zero.
That’s a big deal.
Because it suggests that the signal DAMA observed is unlikely to be caused by dark matter — particularly the popular WIMP (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles) model that many experiments have been chasing for decades.
So what did DAMA actually detect?
That question is still open.
Some scientists believe the signal could be due to background effects — for example, slow changes in detector conditions over time that accidentally mimic a seasonal pattern. Even small drifts, when processed in certain ways, can create a sine-wave-like signal that looks convincing.
Despite the new findings, the DAMA collaboration continues to stand by its interpretation. But the broader scientific community is increasingly moving on.
As physicist Reina Maruyama put it, researchers can now focus on finding real evidence of dark matter instead of “chasing a ghost.”
Looking ahead, the story isn’t completely over.
Future experiments like SABRE, along with deeper reanalysis of existing data, will be key to settling the debate once and for all. But for now, the balance of evidence strongly suggests that DAMA’s long-standing signal is not the dark matter discovery it once appeared to be.
And in science, that’s just as important — ruling out false signals is how the real breakthroughs eventually happen.
