Related papers: Superheated Microdrops as Cold Dark Matter Detecto…
Neutron stars can provide new insight into dark matter properties, as these dense objects capture dark matter particles very efficiently. It has recently been shown that the energy transfer in the dark matter capture process can lead to…
A new neutron detection concept is presented that is based on superconductive niobium (Nb) strips coated by a boron (B) layer. The working principle of the detector relies on the nuclear reaction 10B+n $\rightarrow$ $\alpha$+ 7Li , with…
The MICROMEGAS detector concept, generally optimized for use in accelerator experiments, displays a peculiar combination of features that can be advantageous in several astroparticle and neutrino physics applications. Their sub-keV…
The existence of dark matter is undisputed, while the nature of it is still unknown. Explaining dark matter with the existence of a new unobserved particle is among the most promising possible solutions. Recently dark matter candidates in…
Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) are candidates for non-baryonic Dark Matter. WIMPs are supposed to interact with baryonic matter via scattering off nuclei producing a nuclear recoil with energies up to a few 10 keV with a very…
The CALDER project aims at developing cryogenic light detectors with high sensitivity to UV and visible light, to be used for particle tagging in massive bolometers. Indeed the sensitivity of CUORE can be increased by a factor of 3, thanks…
Neutrons are a particularly dangerous background for direct WIMP dark matter searches; their nuclear recoils with the target nucleus are often indistinguishable from nuclear recoils produced by WIMP-nuclear collisions. In this study, we…
How high the temperature of a liquid be raised beyond its boiling point without vaporizing (known as the limit of superheat) is an interesting subject of investigation. A new method of finding the limit of superheat of liquids is presented…
If the cosmic dark matter consists of weakly-interacting massive particles, these particles should be produced in reactions at the next generation of high-energy accelerators. Measurements at these accelerators can then be used to determine…
Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) are increasingly used for their thermoplasmonic properties, i.e. their ability to convert light into heat upon plasmon resonance. However, measuring temperature gradients generated at the microscale by assemblies…
The direct detection rate for supersymmetric cold dark matter (CDM) particles is calculated for a number of suitable nuclear targets. Both the coherent and spin contributions are considered. By considering representative phenomenologically…
This paper presents progress on the development of a cryostat intended to improve upon the low-energy threshold (below 0.5 keV) of p-type point contact germanium gamma-ray spectrometers. Ultra-low energy thresholds are important in the…
Diamond operated as a cryogenic calorimeter is an excellent target for direct detection of low-mass dark matter candidates. Following the realization of the first low-threshold cryogenic detector that uses diamond as absorber for…
We report an experimental demonstration of optical 2DCS in cold atoms. The experiment integrates a collinear 2DCS setup with a magneto-optical trap (MOT), in which cold rubidium (Rb) atoms are prepared at a temperature of about 200 $\mu$K…
Sub-GeV Dark Matter particles upscattered by cosmic rays gain enough kinetic energy to pass the thresholds of large volume detectors on Earth. We then use public Super-Kamiokande and MiniBooNE data to derive a novel limit on the scattering…
CryoCsI, the proposed prototype, is a cryogenic undoped CsI scintillating detector, which has a much lower energy threshold potentially down to 0.5 keV$_{nr}$ compared to the doped CsI. This enhanced sensitivity of CryoCsI allows for the…
We investigate sub-Doppler laser cooling of bosonic potassium isotopes, whose small hyperfine splitting has so far prevented cooling below the Doppler temperature. We find instead that the combination of a dark optical molasses scheme that…
We consider the prospects for the detection of relatively light dark matter through direct annihilation to neutrinos. We specifically focus on the detection possibilities of water Cherenkov and liquid scintillator neutrino detection…
Neutron stars capture dark matter efficiently. The kinetic energy transferred during capture heats old neutron stars in the local galactic halo to temperatures detectable by upcoming infrared telescopes. We derive the sensitivity of this…
Directional detection of nuclear recoils is broadly desirable in nuclear and particle physics. At low recoil energies, this capability may be used to confirm the cosmological origin of a dark matter signal, to penetrate the so-called…