The DRIFT-I dark matter detector at Boulby: design, installation and operation

Alner, G. J.; Araújo, H. M.; Ayad, R.; Bewick, A.; Burwell, J.; Carson, M.; CHEN, C; Davies, Julia; Dawson, J.; Gamble, T.

doi:10.1016/s0168-9002(04)01677-8

Cited by 25 publications

(27 citation statements)

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“…The development of the DRIFT Negative Ion TPC (NITPC) detector concept is covered in [5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12]. A full desription of the latest detector design, DRIFT-II, including installation and operation of the first modules, DRIFT-IIa and DRIFT-IIb, at Boulby Mine is covered in [12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Track reconstruction and performance of DRIFT directional dark matter detectors using alpha particles

Burgos

Forbes

Ghag

et al. 2008

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A:

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First results are presented from an analysis of data from the DRIFT-IIa and DRIFTIIb directional dark matter detectors at Boulby Mine in which alpha particle tracks were reconstructed and used to characterise detector performance-an important step towards optimising directional technology. The drift velocity in DRIFT-IIa was 59.3 ± 0.2 (stat) ± 7.5 (sys) ms −1 based on an analysis of naturally-occurring alphaemitting background. The drift velocity in DRIFT-IIb was 57 ± 1 (stat) ± 3 (sys) ms −1 determined by the analysis of alpha particle tracks from a 210 Po source. 3D range reconstruction and energy spectra were used to identify alpha particles from the decay of 222 Rn, 218 Po, 220 Rn and 216 Po. This study found that (22 ± 2)% of 218 Po progeny (from 222 Rn decay) are produced with no net charge in 40 Torr CS 2 . For 216 Po progeny (from 220 Rn decay) the uncharged fraction is (100 +0 −35 )%.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Track reconstruction and performance of DRIFT directional dark matter detectors using alpha particles

Burgos

Forbes

Ghag

et al. 2008

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A:

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“…Direct detection experiments attempt to observe the nuclear recoil caused by these dark matter particles interacting with nuclei in the detectors. These experiments include DAMA/NaI [1], DAMA/LIBRA [2], NAIAD [3], CDMS [4], EDELWEISS [5], ZEPLIN [6], XENON [7], DRIFT [8,9], CRESST [10,11], SIMPLE [12], PICASSO [13], COUPP [14], and many others. It is well known that the count rate in WIMP direct detection experiments will experience an annual modulation [15,16] as a result of the motion of the Earth around the Sun: the relative velocity of the detector with respect to the WIMPs depends on the time of year.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Annual Modulation of Dark Matter in the Presence of Streams

Savage

Freese

Gondolo

2007

Nuclear Physics B - Proceedings Supplements

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In addition to a smooth component of WIMP dark matter in galaxies, there may be streams of material; the effects of WIMP streams on direct detection experiments is examined in this paper. The contribution to the count rate due to the stream cuts off at some characteristic energy. Near this cutoff energy, the stream contribution to the annual modulation of recoils in the detector is comparable to that of the thermalized halo, even if the stream represents only a small portion (∼5% or less) of the local halo density. Consequently the total modulation may be quite different than would be expected for the standard halo model alone: it may not be cosine-like and can peak at a different date than expected. The effects of speed, direction, density, and velocity dispersion of a stream on the modulation are examined. We describe how the observation of a modulation can be used to determine these stream parameters. Alternatively, the presence of a dropoff in the recoil spectrum can be used to determine the WIMP mass if the stream speed is known. The annual modulation of the cutoff energy together with the annual modulation of the overall signal provide a "smoking gun" for WIMP detection.

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“…To estimate this angular resolution we model a TPC filled with 0.05bar CS 2 gas, a 200µm pitch micropixel readout plane, a 10cm drift length over which a uniform electric field of 1kV cm −1 is applied. This gas pressure, mixture and electric field are chosen to match the design of the DRIFT-I/II detector [8], and the micropixel readout is based on those described in [18]. Although our drift length is shorter than that in DRIFT-I/II, it is chosen so that the rms diffusion over the full 10cm drift length is approximately equal to the pixel pitch [19].…”

Section: Modeling the Detector Responsementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In most cases (a point source in the lab is a possible exception) a background which is anisotropic in the laboratory frame will be isotropic in the Galactic rest frame as the time dependent conversion between the lab and Galactic co-ordinate frames will wash out any lab specific features. Low pressure gas time projection chambers (TPCs), such as DRIFT (Directional Recoil Identification From Tracks) [7,8] and NEWAGE [9], see also Ref. [10], seem to offer the best prospects for a detector capable of measuring the directions of sub-100 keV nuclear recoils.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimizing WIMP directional detectors

Green

Morgan

2007

Astroparticle Physics

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We study the dependence of the exposure required to directly detect a WIMP directional recoil signal on the capabilities of a directional detector. Specifically we consider variations in the nuclear recoil energy threshold, the background rate, whether the detector measures the recoil momentum vector in 2 or 3 dimensions and whether or not the sense of the momentum vector can be determined. We find that the property with the biggest effect on the required exposure is the measurement of the momentum vector sense. If the detector cannot determine the recoil sense, the exposure required is increased by an order of magnitude for 3-d read-out and two orders of magnitude for 2-d read-out. For 2-d read-out the required exposure, in particular if the senses can not be measured, can be significantly reduced by analyzing the reduced angles with the, time dependent, projected direction of solar motion subtracted. The background rate effectively places a lower limit on the WIMP cross-section to which the detector is sensitive; it will be very difficult to detect WIMPs with a signal rate more than an order of magnitude below the background rate. Lowering the energy threshold also reduces the required exposure, but only for thresholds above 20 keV.

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The DRIFT-I dark matter detector at Boulby: design, installation and operation

Cited by 25 publications

References 0 publications

Track reconstruction and performance of DRIFT directional dark matter detectors using alpha particles

Track reconstruction and performance of DRIFT directional dark matter detectors using alpha particles

Annual Modulation of Dark Matter in the Presence of Streams

Optimizing WIMP directional detectors

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