Recoil Directionality Experiment

Simone Sanfilippo ,A Devoto,Y Suvorov,M Caravati,R Cereseto,M La Commara,E Baracchini,N Rossi,C Giganti,V Masone,M Rescigno,A Razeto,L La Delfa,D Sablone,M Gulino,G Fiorillo,G De Filippis,S Davini,G Korga,C Dionisi,M Arba,G De Rosa,A Caminata,A Boiano,M Cariello,M Ave,M Carpinelli,B Bottino,G Testera,M Cadeddu,D Franco,C J Martoff,A De Candia,P Agnes,M Kuss,S Catalanotti,Matteo Tuveri ,Stefano Maria Mari ,G Covone,M Pallavicini,Alberto Mariani ,V Oleynikov,Y Wang,W Bonivento ,D D’Urso,L Pandola,G K Giovannetti,C Galbiati,V Cataudella,H Wang,M Lissia,E Scapparone,C Cicalò

doi:10.1051/epjconf/201920901031

Abstract

Directional sensitivity to nuclear recoils could provide a smoking gun for a possible discovery of dark matter in the form of WIMPs. A hint of directional dependence of the response of a dual-phase liquid argon Time Projection Chamber was found in the SCENE experiment. Given the potential importance of such a capability in the frame work of dark matter searches, a new dedicated experiment, ReD (Recoil Directionality), was designed in the framework of the DarkSide Collaboration, in order to scrutinize this hint. This contribution will describe the performance of the detectors achieved during the first test-beam, the current status of ReD and the perspectives for physics measurements during the forthcoming beam-time.

Highlights

The hypothesis of dark matter was introduced more than 80 years ago to explain anomalous motions of galaxies gravitationally bound in clusters
One of the most favored dark matter candidate is the Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) [1, 2], which explains the current abundance of dark matter as a thermal relic of the big bang
DarkSide-50 (DS-50) is an experiment for the direct detection of WIMPs currently running at INFN Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS, Italy), at a depth of 3800 m.w.e. [3, 4]

Summary

Introduction

The hypothesis of dark matter was introduced more than 80 years ago to explain anomalous motions of galaxies gravitationally bound in clusters. Observational evidences had continued to accumulate since including rotation curves of galaxies and their clusters and discrepancies in the distributions of galaxy cluster mass estimated from luminosity vs gravitational lensing. One of the most favored dark matter candidate is the Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) [1, 2], which explains the current abundance of dark matter as a thermal relic of the big bang. Most models predict dark matter WIMP masses near the electroweak scale of 100’s of GeV/c2. Dark matter particle masses ≤ 10 GeV/c2 can be compatible with experimental constraints if a significant asymmetry between dark matter and their anti-particles existed in the early universe

The DarkSide program

Conclusions