Journal Article

Constraints on directionality effect of nuclear recoils in a liquid argon time projection chamber

Taylor, J., Lissia, M., Mari, S. M., Garbini, M., Grauso, G., Cappello, G., Machulin, I. N., Rode, J., Testera, G., Noto, L. Di, Cebrian, S., Mariani, C., Guerzoni, M., Cavalcante, P., Sung, A., Viel, S., Hubaut, F., Pino, N., Giovanetti, G. K., De Pasquale, S., Erjavec, T., Milincic, R., Rogers, G., De Rosa, G., Pesudo, V., Covone, G., Dionisi, C., Kendziora, C. L., Vossebeld, J., Westerdale, S., Ramachers, Y., Sosa, A., Sanfilippo, S., Wang, Y., Smith, B., Matteucci, G., Agnes, P., Moretti, E., Gendotti, A., Thieme, K., Franco, D., Koulosousas, S., Horikawa, S., Cadeddu, M., Cargioli, N., Tonazzo, A., Jillings, C., Ippolito, V., Korga, G., Guan, M., Kimura, M., Copello, S., Paternoster, G., Kemmerich, N., Pelczar, K., Hamer, A., Cataudella, V., Szelc, A. M., Muscas, C., Stefano, P. Di, Oleynikov, V., Santorelli, R., Gola, A., McDonald, A. B., Pallavicini, M., Hill, S., Kubankin, A., Stringer, M., Pralavorio, P., Poehlmann, D. M., Carlini, M., Rubbia, A., Kuss, M., Vilda, E. Conde, Sabia, M. A., Kochanek, I., Margotti, A., Hugues, T., Rossi, M., Dell’Aquila, D., Savarese, C., Nieradka, G., Pandola, L., Caminata, A., Abia, P. Garcia, Maricic, J., de Soló

2024

Overview

The direct search for dark matter in the form of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMP) is performed by detecting nuclear recoils produced in a target material from the WIMP elastic scattering. The experimental identification of the direction of the WIMP-induced nuclear recoils is a crucial asset in this field, as it enables unmistakable modulation signatures for dark matter. The Recoil Directionality (ReD) experiment was designed to probe for such directional sensitivity in argon dual-phase time projection chambers (TPC), that are widely considered for current and future direct dark matter searches. The TPC of ReD was irradiated with neutrons at the INFN Laboratori Nazionali del Sud. Data were taken with nuclear recoils of known directions and kinetic energy of 72 keV, which is within the range of interest for WIMP-induced signals in argon. The direction-dependent liquid argon charge recombination model by Cataudella et al. was adopted and a likelihood statistical analysis was performed, which gave no indications of significant dependence of the detector response to the recoil direction. The aspect ratio R of the initial ionization cloud is R < 1.072 with 90 % confidence level.

• Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg,Springer,Springer Nature B.V,SpringerOpen
• Subject: Argon / Aspect ratio / Astronomy / Astrophysics and Cosmology / Confidence intervals / Dark matter / Dark matter (Astronomy) / Detectors / Directional sensitivity / Elastic scattering / Elementary Particles / Force and energy / Hadrons / Heavy Ions / Ionization / Kinetic energy / Measurement Science and Instrumentation / Nuclear Energy / Nuclear Physics / Physics / Physics and Astronomy / Quantum Field Theories / Quantum Field Theory / Radiation counters / Radiation, Background / Recoil / Regular Article - Experimental Physics / Statistical analysis / String Theory / Weakly interacting massive particles