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arXiv · hep-ex/9612014

A Superheated Droplet Detector for Dark Matter Search

L. A. Hamel·L. Lessard·L. Rainville·B. Sur·V. Zacek
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Abstract

We discuss the operation principle of a detector based on superheated droplets of Freon-12 and its feasibility for the search of weakly interacting cold dark matter particles. In particular we are interested in a neutralino search experiment in the mass range from 10 to 10^4 GeV/c^2 and with a sensitivity of better than 10^-2 events/kg/d. We show that our new proposed detector can be operated at ambient pressure and room temperature in a mode where it is exclusively sensitive to nuclear recoils like those following neutralino interactions, which allows a powerful background discrimination. An additional advantage of this technique is due to the fact that the detection material, Freon-12, is cheap and readily available in large quantities. Moreover we were able to show that piezoelectric transducers allow efficient event localization in large volumes.

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L. A. Hamel, L. Lessard, L. Rainville, B. Sur, V. Zacek. 1996-12-15. A Superheated Droplet Detector for Dark Matter Search. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0168-9002(97)00074-0

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