There is overwhelming evidence from cosmological and astrophysical observations supporting the existence of dark matter (DM). Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) are among the better motivated candidates to explain DM, which could be detected in direct, indirect or accelerator searches, complementary to each other. Only one experiment, DAMA/LIBRA, has provided a long-standing positive result: the observation of a highly statistically significant annual modulation in the detection rate, compatible with that expected for galactic halo dark matter particles. This result has neither been reproduced by any other experiment, nor ruled out in a model
independent way. Compatibility among the different experimental results in most conventional WIMP-DM scenarios is actually disfavoured. Then, a similar annual modulation search using the same target is mandatory to shed light on the DAMA/LIBRA conundrum, which is the goal of the ANAIS (Annual modulation with NaI Scintillators) experiment.
Image of the Prototype installed in the Hall B of the LSC