DMTPC: a direction-sensitive dark matter search

ORAL

Abstract

A WIMP detector with directional sensitivity could correlate signal events with astrophysical sources, thereby providing a definitive observable signature of dark matter. Our Dark Matter Time-Projection Chamber (DMTPC) collaboration uses a gas-based detector with optical and charge readout to achieve directional sensitivity. We have built a 10 liter prototype detector and operated it in a surface laboratory. The detector consists of two back-to-back time-projection chambers enclosed within a vacuum vessel which is filled with CF$_4$ gas at 75 Torr. I will report on the results from this run, including the first DMTPC limit on the spin-dependent cross section. In addition, I will describe our next-generation detector which we will deploy underground at the WIPP facility in New Mexico (1.6 km water equivalent depth).

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Authors

  • James Battat

    • MIT

  • Steve Ahlen

    • BU

  • Thomas Caldwell

    • UPenn

  • Denis Dujmic

    • MIT

  • Andrei Dushkin

    • Brandeis

  • Peter Fisher

    • MIT

  • Shawn Henderson

    • MIT

  • Andrew Inglis

    • BU

  • Asher Kaboth

    • MIT

  • G. Kohse

    • MIT

  • Richard Lanza

    • MIT

  • Jeremy Lopez

    • MIT

  • Jocelyn Monroe

    • MIT

  • Gabriella Sciolla

    • MIT

  • B.N. Skvorodnev

    • Brandeis

  • Hidefumi Tomita

    • BU

  • Roland Vanderspek

    • MIT

  • Hermann Wellenstein

    • Brandeis

  • Richard Yamamoto

    • MIT