Charge amplification concepts for direction-sensitive dark matter detectors.pdf

Charge amplification concepts for direction-sensitive dark matter detectors D. Dujmic c,d,? P. Fisher c,d,e G. Sciolla c S. Ahlen a V. Dutta c S. Henderson c A. Kaboth c G. Kohse f R. Lanza g J. Monroe c A. Roccaro a N. Skvorodnev b H. Tomita a R. Vanderspek c H. Wellenstein b R. Yamamoto c aPhysics Department, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215 bPhysics Department, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA 02454 cDepartment of Physics, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139 dLaboratory for Nuclear Science, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139 eMIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Cambridge, MA 02139 fNuclear Reactor Laboratory, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139 gDepartment of Nuclear Science and Engineering, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139 Abstract Direction measurement of weakly interacting massive particles in time-projection chambers can provide definite evidence of their existence and help to determine their properties. This article demonstrates several concepts for charge amplification in time-projection chambers that can be used in direction-sensitive dark matter search experiments. We demonstrate reconstruction of the “head-tail”effect for nuclear recoils above 100 keV, and discuss the detector performance in the context of dark matter detection and scaling to large detector volumes. Key words: Dark Matter, Directional Detector, Nuclear Scattering, Optical Readout, TPC, WIMP PACS: 29.40.Cs, 29.40.Gx, 95.35.+d ? Corresponding author. Email address: ddujmic@ (D. Dujmic). a r X i v : 0 8 0 4 .4 8 2 7 v 1 [ a s t r o - p h ] 3 0 A p r 2 0 0 8 1 Introduction Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) are good candidates for con- stituents of a dark-matter halo around our galaxy, and a target of several experimental searches (see e.g. [1] for review). An annual oscillation in the signal at the level of 1-2% was recently confirmed by DAMA collaboration [2]. If the asymmetry is due to Earth’s motion around Sun then much larger diur- nal asymmetry in the WIMP direction is expected [5].