Observation of the 'head-tail' effect in nuclear recoils of low-energy neutrons
arXiv:0708.2370 · doi:10.1016/j.nima.2007.10.037 10.1016/j.nima.2008.04.001
Abstract
Directional detection of dark matter can provide unambiguous observation of dark matter interactions even in the presence of background. This article presents an experimental method to measure the direction tag ("head-tail") of the dark matter wind by detecting the scintillation light created by the elastic nuclear recoils in the scattering of dark matter particles with the detector material. The technique is demonstrated by tagging the direction of the nuclear recoils created in the scattering of low-energy neutrons with CF4 in a low-pressure time-projection chamber that is developed by the DMTPC collaboration. The measurement of the decreasing ionization rate along the recoil trajectory provides the direction tag of the incoming neutrons, and proves that the "head-tail" effect can be observed.
14 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Nucl.Instr.Meth
References in corpus (3)
Cited by in corpus (14)
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- First measurement of the Head-Tail directional nuclear recoil signature at energies relevant to WIMP dark matter searches
- Charge amplification concepts for direction-sensitive dark matter detectors
- First observation of MeV gamma-ray universe with bijective imaging spectroscopy using the Electron-Tracking Compton Telescope aboard SMILE-2+
- Bragg-like curve for dark matter searches; binary gases
- Reconstructing the three-dimensional local dark matter velocity distribution
- Data acquisition electronics and reconstruction software for directional detection of Dark Matter with MIMAC
- The Maximum Patch Method for Directional Dark Matter Detection
- The DMTPC project
- Improved measurement of the head-tail effect in nuclear recoils
- A High Pressure Time Projection Chamber with Optical Readout