Mineral Detection of Neutrinos and Dark Matter. A Whitepaper
| Autor: | Sebastian Baum, Patrick Stengel, Natsue Abe, Javier F. Acevedo, Gabriela R. Araujo, Yoshihiro Asahara, Frank Avignone, Levente Balogh, Laura Baudis, Yilda Boukhtouchen, Joseph Bramante, Pieter Alexander Breur, Lorenzo Caccianiga, Francesco Capozzi, Juan I. Collar, Reza Ebadi, Thomas Edwards, Klaus Eitel, Alexey Elykov, Rodney C. Ewing, Katherine Freese, Audrey Fung, Claudio Galelli, Ulrich A. Glasmacher, Arianna Gleason, Noriko Hasebe, Shigenobu Hirose, Shunsaku Horiuchi, Yasushi Hoshino, Patrick Huber, Yuki Ido, Yohei Igami, Norito Ishikawa, Yoshitaka Itow, Takashi Kamiyama, Takenori Kato, Bradley J. Kavanagh, Yoji Kawamura, Shingo Kazama, Christopher J. Kenney, Ben Kilminster, Yui Kouketsu, Yukiko Kozaka, Noah A. Kurinsky, Matthew Leybourne, Thalles Lucas, William F. McDonough, Mason C. Marshall, Jose Maria Mateos, Anubhav Mathur, Katsuyoshi Michibayashi, Sharlotte Mkhonto, Kohta Murase, Tatsuhiro Naka, Kenji Oguni, Surjeet Rajendran, Hitoshi Sakane, Paola Sala, Kate Scholberg, Ingrida Semenec, Takuya Shiraishi, Joshua Spitz, Kai Sun, Katsuhiko Suzuki, Erwin H. Tanin, Aaron Vincent, Nikita Vladimirov, Ronald L. Walsworth, Hiroko Watanabe |
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| Rok vydání: | 2023 |
| Předmět: |
astro-ph.HE
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO) FOS: Physical sciences Astronomy and Astrophysics High Energy Physics - Experiment High Energy Physics - Phenomenology High Energy Physics - Experiment (hep-ex) High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) Space and Planetary Science astro-ph.CO Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM) astro-ph.IM Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics |
| DOI: | 10.48550/arxiv.2301.07118 |
| Popis: | Minerals are solid state nuclear track detectors - nuclear recoils in a mineral leave latent damage to the crystal structure. Depending on the mineral and its temperature, the damage features are retained in the material from minutes (in low-melting point materials such as salts at a few hundred degrees C) to timescales much larger than the 4.5 Gyr-age of the Solar System (in refractory materials at room temperature). The damage features from the $O(50)$ MeV fission fragments left by spontaneous fission of $^{238}$U and other heavy unstable isotopes have long been used for fission track dating of geological samples. Laboratory studies have demonstrated the readout of defects caused by nuclear recoils with energies as small as $O(1)$ keV. This whitepaper discusses a wide range of possible applications of minerals as detectors for $E_R \gtrsim O(1)$ keV nuclear recoils: Using natural minerals, one could use the damage features accumulated over $O(10)$ Myr$-O(1)$ Gyr to measure astrophysical neutrino fluxes (from the Sun, supernovae, or cosmic rays interacting with the atmosphere) as well as search for Dark Matter. Using signals accumulated over months to few-years timescales in laboratory-manufactured minerals, one could measure reactor neutrinos or use them as Dark Matter detectors, potentially with directional sensitivity. Research groups in Europe, Asia, and America have started developing microscopy techniques to read out the $O(1) - O(100)$ nm damage features in crystals left by $O(0.1) - O(100)$ keV nuclear recoils. We report on the status and plans of these programs. The research program towards the realization of such detectors is highly interdisciplinary, combining geoscience, material science, applied and fundamental physics with techniques from quantum information and Artificial Intelligence. Comment: 115 pages, many pictures of tracks. Please see the source file for higher resolution versions of some plots. v2: matches the published version |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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