Dark Matter Search Results from the PICO-60 CF$_3$I Bubble Chamber
Abstract
New data are reported from the operation of the PICO-60 dark matter detector, a bubble chamber filled with 36.8 kg of CFI and located in the SNOLAB underground laboratory. PICO-60 is the largest bubble chamber to search for dark matter to date. With an analyzed exposure of 92.8 livedays, PICO-60 exhibits the same excellent background rejection observed in smaller bubble chambers. Alpha decays in PICO-60 exhibit frequency-dependent acoustic calorimetry, similar but not identical to that reported recently in a CF bubble chamber. PICO-60 also observes a large population of unknown background events, exhibiting acoustic, spatial, and timing behaviors inconsistent with those expected from a dark matter signal. These behaviors allow for analysis cuts to remove all background events while retaining of the exposure. Stringent limits on weakly interacting massive particles interacting via spin-dependent proton and spin-independent processes are set, and most interpretations of the DAMA/LIBRA modulation signal as dark matter interacting with iodine nuclei are ruled out.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1510.07754,
title = {Dark Matter Search Results from the PICO-60 CF$_3$I Bubble Chamber},
author = {C. Amole and M. Ardid and D. M. Asner and D. Baxter and E. Behnke and P. Bhattacharjee and H. Borsodi and M. Bou-Cabo and S. J. Brice and D. Broemmelsiek and K. Clark and J. I. Collar and P. S. Cooper and M. Crisler and C. E. Dahl and S. Daley and M. Das and F. Debris and N. Dhungana and J. Farine and I. Felis and R. Filgas and F. Girard and G. Giroux and A. Grandison and M. Hai and J. Hall and O. Harris and M. Jin and C. B. Krauss and S. Fallows and M. Lafrenière and M. Laurin and I. Lawson and I. Levine and W. H. Lippincott and E. Mann and D. Maurya and P. Mitra and R. Neilson and A. J. Noble and A. Plante and R. B. Podviianiuk and S. Priya and E. Ramberg and A. E. Robinson and R. Rucinski and M. Ruschman and O. Scallon and S. Seth and P. Simon and A. Sonnenschein and I. Štekl and E. Vàzquez-Jàuregui and J. Wells and U. Wichoski and V. Zacek and J. Zhang and I. A. Shkrob},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1510.07754},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
v3 to reflect published version