DarkSphere · Search for light Dark Matter with a Spherical Proportional Counter
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2019-05-01 → 2021-04-30
- EU contribution
- €224,934
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Search for light Dark Matter with a Spherical Proportional Counter
Dark Matter (DM) constitutes 85% of the matter in the Universe, but what is it made of? This is the most compelling question in physics for over a century. Astrophysical observations and cosmological constraints point towards particle dark matter, which is "cold", long-lived, and electrically neutral. Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) in the mass range between 10 - 1000 GeV have been the main focus of experimental scrutiny. However, lack of conclusive evidence calls for a broadening of our approach to the DM question: Modern theories may explain the observed DM abundance with light dark matter candidates. The current generation of state-of-the-art dark matter detectors, optimised for WIMPs, are not sensitive to such light DM candidates. DarkSphere aims to shed new light on DM through a novel direct search of unprecedented sensitivity for light DM candidates in the 0.05-10 GeV mass region. The primary tool to achieve this goal is the Spherical Proportional Counter (SPC), a novel gaseous detector. The detector combines large volume with a low energy threshold down to a single electron; a unique feature among DM detectors. It will be filled with light (helium, neon) and hydrogen-rich gases (alkanes) to optimise projectile-target momentum transfer. The NEWS-G collaboration develops and operates SPCs across the globe for light DM searches, installed at the deep-underground laboratories of SNOLAB (Canada), LSM (France) and Boulby (UK). The goals of DarkSphere are achieved through its mains objectives: -The study of detector properties, such as the gain, ionisation statistics, and drift time of ions, as well as the production of a detailed simulation framework to reproduce the measured detector properties in order to support measurements and physics analysis. -The estimation of the ionisation quenching factor - the parameter used to measure the relative ionisation yield of nuclear recoils and electrons - and to study the Migdal effect, both being critical parameters for recoil ionisation modelling. -The development of a method for fast neutron spectroscopy to study neutron-induced background in rare-event search experiments. -The discovery or placing stringent constraints on light DM through physics analysis of NEWS-G data, including signal/background discrimination, background estimation, statistical analysis, and phenomenological result interpretation.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
The aim of DarkSphere is to shine a light on the nature of Dark Matter (DM), with the NEWS-G direct detection experiment that focuses in the low mass region. Through the novel detector concept of Spherical Proportional Counters, the experiment will provide for the first time access to the 0.1 - 10 GeV mass region, which is highly motivated by the Higgs boson discovery and the non-observation of supersymmetry at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The innovative detector concept offers a number of advantages, including: very low energy detection threshold, background rejection capabilities, and construction of large volume using solely radiopure materials. Furthermore, in contrast to other direct detection experiments, using a choice of light target gases, including hydrogen, helium, and neon, allows the NEWS-G experiment to kinematically match the target to the DM candidate mass, and thus maximise its sensitivity for each mass in the region of interest. Within the project a number of advances will be achieved in terms of detector optimisation and simulation through original measurements, background measurement methods, physics analysis with novel classification and statistical inference methods, and advances in DM phenomenology. Beyond use in fundamental physics research, the detector concepts relevant for DarkSphere have potential for industrial and medical applications, which are also explored.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM · BirminghamCoordinatorUnited Kingdom
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union