Alexis Aguilar-Arevalo, Fabricio Alcalde Bessia, Nicolas Avalos, Daniel Baxter, Xavier Bertou, Carla Bonifazi, Ana Botti, Mariano Cababie, Gustavo Cancelo, Brenda Aurea Cervantes-Vergara, Nuria Castello-Mor, Alvaro Chavarria, Claudio R. Chavez, Fernando Chierchie, Juan Manuel De Egea, Juan Carlos D`Olivo, Cyrus E. Dreyer, Alex Drlica-Wagner, Rouven Essig, Juan Estrada, Ezequiel Estrada, Erez Etzion, Guillermo Fernandez-Moroni, Marivi Fernandez-Serra, Steve Holland, Agustin Lantero Barreda, Andrew Lathrop, Jose Lipovetzky, Ben Loer, Edgar Marrufo Villalpando, Jorge Molina, Santiago Perez, Paolo Privitera, Dario Rodrigues, Richard Saldanha, Diego Santa Cruz, Aman Singal, Nathan Saffold, Leandro Stefanazzi, Miguel Sofo-Haro, Javier Tiffenberg, Christian Torres, Sho Uemura, Rocio Vilar
Feb 21, 2022·astro-ph.IM·PDF The Oscura experiment will lead the search for low-mass dark matter particles using a very large array of novel silicon Charge Coupled Devices (CCDs) with a threshold of two electrons and with a total exposure of 30 kg-yr. The R&D effort, which began in FY20, is currently entering the design phase with the goal of being ready to start construction in late 2024. Oscura will have unprecedented sensitivity to sub-GeV dark matter particles that interact with electrons, probing dark matter-electron scattering for masses down to 500 keV and dark matter being absorbed by electrons for masses down to 1 eV. The Oscura R&D effort has made some significant progress on the main technical challenges of the experiment, of which the most significant are engaging new foundries for the fabrication of the CCD sensors, developing a cold readout solution, and understanding the experimental backgrounds.
Beatriz Aja, Sergio Arguedas Cuendis, Ivan Arregui, Eduardo Artal, R. Belén Barreiro, Francisco J. Casas, Maria C. de Ory, Alejandro Díaz-Morcillo, Luisa de la Fuente, Juan Daniel Gallego, José María García-Barceló, Benito Gimeno, Alicia Gomez, Daniel Granados, Bradley J. Kavanagh, Miguel A. G. Laso, Txema Lopetegi, Antonio José Lozano-Guerrero, Maria T. Magaz, Jesús Martín-Pintado, Enrique Martínez-González, Jordi Miralda-Escudé, Juan Monzó-Cabrera, Jose R. Navarro-Madrid, Ana B. Nuñez Chico, Juan Pablo Pascual, Jorge Pelegrin, Carlos Peña Garay, David Rodriguez, Juan M. Socuéllamos, Fernando Teberio, Jorge Teniente, Patricio Vielva, Iván Vila, Rocío Vilar, Enrique Villa
We propose a novel experiment, the Canfranc Axion Detection Experiment (CADEx), to probe dark matter axions with masses in the range 330-460 $μ$eV, within the W-band (80-110 GHz), an unexplored parameter space in the well-motivated dark matter window of Quantum ChromoDynamics (QCD) axions. The experimental design consists of a microwave resonant cavity haloscope in a high static magnetic field coupled to a highly sensitive detecting system based on Kinetic Inductance Detectors via optimized quasi-optics (horns and mirrors). The experiment is in preparation and will be installed in the dilution refrigerator of the Canfranc Underground Laboratory. Sensitivity forecasts for axion detection with CADEx, together with the potential of the experiment to search for dark photons, are presented.
By CDF, D0 collaborations
The Fermilab Tevatron collider experiments, CDF and \dz, have collected over 200 ${\rm pb}^{-1}$ of data at $\sqrt{s}=1.96$ TeV since March 2002 (RunII). Both experiments have investigated physics beyond the Standard Model; this paper reviews some of the recent results on the searches for new phenomena, concentrating on Z', extra dimensions, excited electrons and leptoquarks. No signal was observed, therefore stringent limits on the signatures and models were derived.
Juan Cortabitarte Gutiérrez, Bradley J. Kavanagh, Núria Castelló-Mor, Francisco J. Casas, Jose M. Diego, Enrique Martínez-González, Rocío Vilar Cortabitarte
The Dark Axion Portal provides a model for Dark Matter (DM) in which both Dark Photons $γ^\prime$ and Axions $a$ can contribute to the present day abundance of DM. We study the parameter space of the Dark Axion Portal to pinpoint regions of the parameter space where $γ^\prime$ and $a$ can be produced with sufficient abundance to account for the cosmic DM density, while still being detectable in planned direct detection and axion haloscope experiments. In particular, we explore the production of eV-scale Dark Photons in the Dark Axion Portal, taking into account a possible kinetic mixing between the dark and visible photons, which is essential for the detection of dark photons through absorption in direct searches. We show that a non-zero kinetic mixing does not generally spoil the phenomenology of the model, leaving both the axion and dark photon stable. Viable production mechanisms point to a sub-dominant population of dark photons making up $\lesssim 10\%$ of the DM, with the remainder consisting of axion DM. Dark photons in the mass range $m_{γ^\prime} \sim 20-200\,\mathrm{eV}$ and axions in the mass range $m_a \sim 30 - 400\,μ\mathrm{eV}$ may be produced with these abundances self-consistently in the Dark Axion Portal and are within the reach of future direct searches.
Santiago Perez, Dario Rodrigues, Juan Estrada, Roni Harnik, Zhen Liu, Brenda A. Cervantes-Vergara, Juan Carlos D'Olivo, Ryan D. Plestid, Javier Tiffenberg, Tien-Tien Yu, Alexis Aguilar-Arevalo, Fabricio Alcalde-Bessia, Nicolas Avalos, Oscar Baez, Daniel Baxter, Xavier Bertou, Carla Bonifazi, Ana Botti, Gustavo Cancelo, Nuria Castelló-Mor, Alvaro E. Chavarria, Claudio R. Chavez, Fernando Chierchie, Juan Manuel De Egea, Cyrus Dreyer, Alex Drlica-Wagner, Rouven Essig, Ezequiel Estrada, Erez Etzion, Paul Grylls, Guillermo Fernandez-Moroni, Marivi Fernández-Serra, Santiago Ferreyra, Stephen Holland, Agustín Lantero Barreda, Andrew Lathrop, Ian Lawson, Ben Loer, Steffon Luoma, Edgar Marrufo Villalpando, Mauricio Martinez Montero, Kellie McGuire, Jorge Molina, Sravan Munagavalasa, Danielle Norcini, Alexander Piers, Paolo Privitera, Nathan Saffold, Richard Saldanha, Aman Singal, Radomir Smida, Miguel Sofo-Haro, Diego Stalder, Leandro Stefanazzi, Michelangelo Traina, Yu-Dai Tsai, Sho Uemura, Pedro Ventura, Rocío Vilar Cortabitarte, Rachana Yajur
Oscura is a planned light-dark matter search experiment using Skipper-CCDs with a total active mass of 10 kg. As part of the detector development, the collaboration plans to build the Oscura Integration Test (OIT), an engineering test with 10% of the total mass. Here we discuss the early science opportunities with the OIT to search for millicharged particles (mCPs) using the NuMI beam at Fermilab. mCPs would be produced at low energies through photon-mediated processes from decays of scalar, pseudoscalar, and vector mesons, or direct Drell-Yan productions. Estimates show that the OIT would be a world-leading probe for mCPs in the MeV mass range.
Brenda A. Cervantes-Vergara, Santiago Perez, Juan Estrada, Ana Botti, Claudio R. Chavez, Fernando Chierchie, Nathan Saffold, Alexis Aguilar-Arevalo, Fabricio Alcalde-Bessia, Nicolás Avalos, Oscar Baez, Daniel Baxter, Xavier Bertou, Carla Bonifazi, Gustavo Cancelo, Nuria Castelló-Mor, Alvaro E. Chavarria, Juan Manuel De Egea, Juan Carlos D'Olivo, Cyrus Dreyer, Alex Drlica-Wagner, Rouven Essig, Ezequiel Estrada, Erez Etzion, Paul Grylls, Guillermo Fernandez-Moroni, Marivi Fernández-Serra, Santiago Ferreyra, Stephen Holland, Agustín Lantero Barreda, Andrew Lathrop, Ian Lawson, Ben Loer, Steffon Luoma, Edgar Marrufo Villalpando, Mauricio Martinez Montero, Kellie McGuire, Jorge Molina, Sravan Munagavalasa, Danielle Norcini, Alexander Piers, Paolo Privitera, Dario Rodrigues, Richard Saldanha, Aman Singal, Radomir Smida, Miguel Sofo-Haro, Diego Stalder, Leandro Stefanazzi, Javier Tiffenberg, Michelangelo Traina, Sho Uemura, Pedro Ventura, Rocío Vilar Cortabitarte, Rachana Yajur
Oscura is a proposed multi-kg skipper-CCD experiment designed for a dark matter (DM) direct detection search that will reach unprecedented sensitivity to sub-GeV DM-electron interactions with its 10 kg detector array. Oscura is planning to operate at SNOLAB with 2070 m overburden, and aims to reach a background goal of less than one event in each electron bin in the 2-10 electron ionization-signal region for the full 30 kg-year exposure, with a radiation background rate of 0.01 dru. In order to achieve this goal, Oscura must address each potential source of background events, including instrumental backgrounds. In this work, we discuss the main instrumental background sources and the strategy to control them, establishing a set of constraints on the sensors' performance parameters. We present results from the tests of the first fabricated Oscura prototype sensors, evaluate their performance in the context of the established constraints and estimate the Oscura instrumental background based on these results.
Brenda A. Cervantes-Vergara, Santiago E. Perez, Nicola Bacchetta, Nuria Castello-Mor, Juan Estrada, Marcos Fernandez Garcia, Petra Merkel, Maria Perez Martinez, Dario Rodrigues, Javier Tiffenberg, Rocio Vilar Cortabitarte
We deployed MOSKITA $\sim$33 m away from the CMS collision point, the first skipper-CCD detector probing low-energy particles produced in high-energy collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In this work, we search for beam-related events using data collected in 2024 during beam-on and beam-off periods. The dataset corresponds to integrated luminosities of 113.3 fb$^{-1}$ and 1.54 nb$^{-1}$ for the proton-proton and Pb-Pb collision periods, respectively. We report observed event rates in a model-independent framework across two ionization regions: $\leq20e^-$ and $>20e^-$. For the low-energy region, we perform a likelihood analysis to test the null hypothesis of no beam-correlated signal. We found no significant correlation during proton-proton and Pb-Pb collisions. For the high-energy region, we present the energy spectra for both collision periods and compare event rates for images with and without luminosity. We observe a slight increase in the event rate following the Pb-Pb collisions, coinciding with a rise in the single-electron rate, which will be investigated in future work. Using the low-energy proton-proton results, we place 95% C.L. constraints on the mass-millicharge parameter space of millicharged particles. Overall, the results in this work demonstrate the viability of skipper-CCD technology to explore new physics at high-energy colliders and motivate future searches with more massive detectors.
A. Aguilar-Arevalo, I. Arnquist, N. Avalos, L. Barak, D. Baxter, X. Bertou, I. M. Bloch, A. M. Botti, M. Cababie, G. Cancelo, N. Castelló-Mor, B. A. Cervantes-Vergara, A. E. Chavarria, J. Cortabitarte-Gutiérrez, M. Crisler, J. Cuevas-Zepeda, A. Dastgheibi-Fard, C. De Dominicis, O. Deligny, A. Drlica-Wagner, J. Duarte-Campderros, J. C. D'Olivo, R. Essig, E. Estrada, J. Estrada, E. Etzion, F. Favela-Perez, N. Gadola, R. Gaïor, S. E. Holland, T. Hossbach, L. Iddir, B. Kilminster, Y. Korn, A. Lantero-Barreda, I. Lawson, S. Lee, A. Letessier-Selvon, P. Loaiza, A. Lopez-Virto, S. Luoma, E. Marrufo-Villalpando, K. J. McGuire, G. F. Moroni, S. Munagavalasa, D. Norcini, A. Orly, G. Papadopoulos, S. Paul, S. E. Perez, A. Piers, P. Privitera, P. Robmann, D. Rodrigues, N. A. Saffold, S. Scorza, M. Settimo, A. Singal, R. Smida, M. Sofo-Haro, L. Stefanazzi, K. Stifter, J. Tiffenberg, M. Traina, S. Uemura, I. Vila, R. Vilar, T. Volansky, G. Warot, R. Yajur, T-T. Yu, J-P. Zopounidis
We present results from a 3.25 kg-day target exposure of two silicon charge-coupled devices (CCDs), each with 24 megapixels and skipper readout, deployed in the DAMIC setup at SNOLAB. With a reduction in pixel readout noise of a factor of 10 relative to the previous detector, we investigate the excess population of low-energy events in the CCD bulk previously observed above expected backgrounds. We address the dominant systematic uncertainty of the previous analysis through a depth fiducialization designed to reject surface backgrounds on the CCDs. The measured bulk ionization spectrum confirms the presence of an excess population of low-energy events in the CCD target with characteristic rate of ${\sim}7$ events per kg-day and electron-equivalent energies of ${\sim}80~$eV, whose origin remains unknown.