The Oscura Experiment
Abstract
The Oscura experiment will lead the search for low-mass dark matter particles using a very large array of novel silicon Charge Coupled Devices (CCDs) with a threshold of two electrons and with a total exposure of 30 kg-yr. The R&D effort, which began in FY20, is currently entering the design phase with the goal of being ready to start construction in late 2024. Oscura will have unprecedented sensitivity to sub-GeV dark matter particles that interact with electrons, probing dark matter-electron scattering for masses down to 500 keV and dark matter being absorbed by electrons for masses down to 1 eV. The Oscura R&D effort has made some significant progress on the main technical challenges of the experiment, of which the most significant are engaging new foundries for the fabrication of the CCD sensors, developing a cold readout solution, and understanding the experimental backgrounds.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2202.10518,
title = {The Oscura Experiment},
author = {Alexis Aguilar-Arevalo and Fabricio Alcalde Bessia and Nicolas Avalos and Daniel Baxter and Xavier Bertou and Carla Bonifazi and Ana Botti and Mariano Cababie and Gustavo Cancelo and Brenda Aurea Cervantes-Vergara and Nuria Castello-Mor and Alvaro Chavarria and Claudio R. Chavez and Fernando Chierchie and Juan Manuel De Egea and Juan Carlos D`Olivo and Cyrus E. Dreyer and Alex Drlica-Wagner and Rouven Essig and Juan Estrada and Ezequiel Estrada and Erez Etzion and Guillermo Fernandez-Moroni and Marivi Fernandez-Serra and Steve Holland and Agustin Lantero Barreda and Andrew Lathrop and Jose Lipovetzky and Ben Loer and Edgar Marrufo Villalpando and Jorge Molina and Santiago Perez and Paolo Privitera and Dario Rodrigues and Richard Saldanha and Diego Santa Cruz and Aman Singal and Nathan Saffold and Leandro Stefanazzi and Miguel Sofo-Haro and Javier Tiffenberg and Christian Torres and Sho Uemura and Rocio Vilar},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2202.10518},
year = {2022}
}