English

Final Results of the PICASSO Dark Matter Search Experiment

High Energy Physics - Experiment 2017-03-24 v2 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics Instrumentation and Detectors

Abstract

The PICASSO dark matter search experiment operated an array of 32 superheated droplet detectors containing 3.0 kg of C4_{4}F10_{10} and collected an exposure of 231.4 kgd at SNOLAB between March 2012 and January 2014. We report on the final results of this experiment which includes for the first time the complete data set and improved analysis techniques including \mbox{acoustic} localization to allow fiducialization and removal of higher activity regions within the detectors. No signal consistent with dark matter was observed. We set limits for spin-dependent interactions on protons of σpSD\sigma_p^{SD}~=~1.32~×\times~102^{-2}~pb (90\%~C.L.) at a WIMP mass of 20 GeV/c2^{2}. In the spin-independent sector we exclude cross sections larger than σpSI\sigma_p^{SI}~=~4.86~×\times~105^{-5 }~pb~(90\% C.L.) in the region around 7 GeV/c2^{2}. The pioneering efforts of the PICASSO experiment have paved the way forward for a next generation detector incorporating much of this technology and experience into larger mass bubble chambers.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1611.01499,
  title  = {Final Results of the PICASSO Dark Matter Search Experiment},
  author = {E. Behnke and M. Besnier and P. Bhattacharjee and X. Dai and M. Das and A. Davour and F. Debris and N. Dhungana and J. Farine and M. Fines-Neuschild and S. Gagnebin and G. Giroux and E. Grace and C. M. Jackson and A. Kamaha and C. B. Krauss and M. Lafrenière and M. Laurin and I. Lawson and L. Lessard and I. Levine and D. Marlisov and J. -P. Martin and P. Mitra and A. J. Noble and A. Plante and R. Podviyanuk and S. Pospisil and O. Scallon and S. Seth and N. Starinski and I. Stekl and U. Wichoski and V. Zacek},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1611.01499},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

24 pages, 7 figures