We present the first direct-detection search for eV-to-GeV dark matter using a new ~2-gram high-resistivity Skipper-CCD from a dedicated fabrication batch that was optimized for dark-matter searches. Using 24 days of data acquired in the MINOS cavern at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, we measure the lowest rates in silicon detectors of events containing one, two, three, or four electrons, and achieve world-leading sensitivity for a large range of sub-GeV dark matter masses. Data taken with different thicknesses of the detector shield suggest a correlation between the rate of high-energy tracks and the rate of single-electron events previously classified as "dark current." We detail key characteristics of the new Skipper-CCDs, which augur well for the planned construction of the ~100-gram SENSEI experiment at SNOLAB.
@article{arxiv.2004.11378,
title = {SENSEI: Direct-Detection Results on sub-GeV Dark Matter from a New Skipper-CCD},
author = {Liron Barak and Itay M. Bloch and Mariano Cababie and Gustavo Cancelo and Luke Chaplinsky and Fernando Chierchie and Michael Crisler and Alex Drlica-Wagner and Rouven Essig and Juan Estrada and Erez Etzion and Guillermo Fernandez Moroni and Daniel Gift and Sravan Munagavalasa and Aviv Orly and Dario Rodrigues and Aman Singal and Miguel Sofo Haro and Leandro Stefanazzi and Javier Tiffenberg and Sho Uemura and Tomer Volansky and Tien-Tien Yu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2004.11378},
year = {2020}
}
Comments
5 pages, 4 figures, 1 table + Supplemental Materials (5 pages, 8 figures) + References. v3: matches version published in PRL