Future PICO WIMP Searches

The PICO collaboration has constructed the PICO-40L bubble chamber at SNOLAB with WIMP search operations to begin in 2019. PICO-40L is a 40-liter “right-side-up” bubble chamber, the first dark matter search chamber of this new design which has been demonstrated by prototype R&D chambers operated at Drexel University and the University of Chicago. We will operate PICO-40L with a C3F8 target and gain larger exposures than those of previous PICO dark matter searches, allowing us to probe new low cross-section areas of the spin-dependent WIMP-proton parameter space. We project an order of magnitude lower neutron background than PICO-60 and a factor of 6 improvement over the recent PICO-60 results. Following PICO-40L, we will construct PICO-500, the next PICO dark matter detector with a planned exposure on the scale of ton-years, again with C3F8 target, and gaining another order of magnitude cross-section improvement in the SD WIMP search.