Particle detection in rare gas solids: DEMIURGOS experiment

Abstract

Low energy threshold detectors are necessary in many frontier fields of the experimental physics. In particular these are extremely important for probing Dark Matter (DM) possible candidates. We present the activity of the DEMIURGOS R&D project, a novel detection approach that exploits Rare Gas crystals maintained at low temperature both pure and doped. In both the schemes, the detection approach takes advantage of the single-electron detection combined with a very low dark count rate typical of microchannel plate or channeltron sensors. Moreover, to ensure electrons’ drift, we need high quality crystals with an impurity level lower than ppb especially for high electronegativity atoms. Through these schemes, we could be able to detect low energy release in the range sub eV-tens of eV in large volume crystals opening thus the possibility to investigate lighter DM candidates and other feeble interacting phenomena.