Eur. Phys. J. C (2018) 78: 578
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-018-6060-1

Regular Article - Experimental Physics

Discovery potential for directional Dark Matter detection with nuclear emulsions

NEWSdm Collaboration

¹ INR RAS-Institute for Nuclear Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
² INFN Sezione di Napoli, Naples, Italy
³ Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università Federico II di Napoli, Naples, Italy
⁴ INP MSU-Skobeltsyn Institute of Nuclear Physics of Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia
⁵ Nagoya University and KM Institute, Nagoya, Japan
⁶ JINR-Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna, Russia
⁷ LPI-Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
⁸ INFN-Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, Assergi, L’Aquila, Italy
⁹ INFN Sezione di Bari, Bari, Italy
¹⁰ Gran Sasso Science Institute, L’Aquila, Italy
¹¹ METU-Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey
¹² Chiba University, Chiba, Japan
¹³ RINS and Department of Physics Education, Gyeongsang National University, Jinju, Korea
¹⁴ INFN Sezione di Roma, Rome, Italy
¹⁵ National Research Nuclear University, Moscow Engineering Physical University, Moscow, Russia
¹⁶ INFN Sezione di Padova, Padua, Italy
¹⁷ Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia dell’Università di Padova, Padua, Italy
¹⁸ Yandex School of Data Analysis, Moscow, Russia
¹⁹ Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università di Roma, Rome, Italy
²⁰ National Research University, Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia

^* e-mail: antonia.dicrescenzo@na.infn.it
^** e-mail: natalia.dimarco@lngs.infn.it

Received: 22 January 2018
Accepted: 11 July 2018
Published online: 17 July 2018

Abstract

Direct Dark Matter searches are nowadays one of the most fervid research topics with many experimental efforts devoted to the search for nuclear recoils induced by the scattering of Weakly Interactive Massive Particles (WIMPs). Detectors able to reconstruct the direction of the nucleus recoiling against the scattering WIMP are opening a new frontier to possibly extend Dark Matter searches beyond the neutrino background. Exploiting directionality would also prove the galactic origin of Dark Matter with an unambiguous signal-to-background separation. Indeed, the angular distribution of recoiled nuclei is centered around the direction of the Cygnus constellation, while the background distribution is expected to be isotropic. Current directional experiments are based on gas TPC whose sensitivity is limited by the small achievable detector mass. In this paper we present the discovery potential of a directional experiment based on the use of a solid target made of newly developed nuclear emulsions and of optical read-out systems reaching unprecedented nanometric resolution.