QUEST-DMC superfluid $^3$He detector for sub-GeV dark matter
Abstract
The focus of dark matter searches to date has been on Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) in the GeV/-TeV/ mass range. The direct, indirect and collider searches in this mass range have been extensive but ultimately unsuccessful, providing a strong motivation for widening the search outside this range. Here we describe a new concept for a dark matter experiment, employing superfluid He as a detector for dark matter that is close to the mass of the proton, of order 1 GeV/. The QUEST-DMC detector concept is based on quasiparticle detection in a bolometer cell by a nanomechanical resonator. In this paper we develop the energy measurement methodology and detector response model, simulate candidate dark matter signals and expected background interactions, and calculate the sensitivity of such a detector. We project that such a detector can reach sub-eV nuclear recoil energy threshold, opening up new windows on the parameter space of both spin-dependent and spin-independent interactions of light dark matter candidates.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2310.11304,
title = {QUEST-DMC superfluid $^3$He detector for sub-GeV dark matter},
author = {S. Autti and A. Casey and N. Eng and N. Darvishi and P. Franchini and R. P. Haley and P. J. Heikkinen and A. Jennings and A. Kemp and E. Leason and L. V. Levitin and J. Monroe and J. March-Russel and M. T. Noble and J. R. Prance and X. Rojas and T. Salmon and J. Saunders and R. Smith and M. D. Thompson and V. Tsepelin and S. M. West and L. Whitehead and V. V. Zavjalov and D. E. Zmeev},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2310.11304},
year = {2024}
}
Comments
17 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables. Published in EPJ-C