Unique Signature of Dark Matter in Ancient Mica
arXiv:astro-ph/9701215 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.78.1628
Abstract
Mica can store (for >1 Gy) etchable tracks caused by atoms recoiling from WIMPs. Because a background from fission neutrons will eventually limit this technique, a unique signature for WIMPs in ancient mica is needed. Our motion around the center of the Galaxy causes WIMPs, unlike neutrons, to enter the mica from a preferred direction on the sky. Mica is a directional detector and despite the complex rotations that natural mica crystals make with respect to this WIMP ``wind,'' there is a substantial dependence of etch pit density on present day mica orientation.
5 pages, LaTeX, 2 figures. Accepted for publication at Phys. Rev. Lett
Cited by in corpus (13)
- Paleo-detectors: Searching for Dark Matter with Ancient Minerals
- Searching for Dark Matter with Paleo-Detectors
- Ultra-Heavy Dark Matter Search with Electron Microscopy of Geological Quartz
- Digging for Dark Matter: Spectral Analysis and Discovery Potential of Paleo-Detectors
- Time-integrated directional detection of dark matter
- Paleo-Detectors for Galactic Supernova Neutrinos
- Mineral Detection of Neutrinos and Dark Matter. A Whitepaper
- Directional Detection of Dark Matter Using Solid-State Quantum Sensing
- Measuring Changes in the Atmospheric Neutrino Rate Over Gigayear Timescales
- Probing the structure of the cold dark matter halo with ancient mica
- New Projections for Dark Matter Searches with Paleo-Detectors
- Particle detection and tracking with DNA
- Galactic Geology: Probing Time-Varying Dark Matter Signals with Paleo-Detectors