Search

A technique for measuring the charges of relativistic nuclei in thick emulsion layers irradiated in a longitudinal direction is described. This technique has been implemented on the PAVICOM completely automated facility at the Lebedev Physical Institute. The calibration curves for relativistic nuclei with Z > 3 are presented. The advantages of this technique are demonstrated using charge measurements of 28Si nuclear fragments as an example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]