Graphene-based detectors for directional dark matter detection

Dark matter detectors with directional sensitivity have the capability to distinguish dark matter induced nuclear recoils from isotropic backgrounds, thus providing a smoking gun signature for dark matter in the Galactic halo. Motivated by recent progress in graphene and two-dimensional materials re...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe European physical journal. C, Particles and fields Vol. 79; no. 7; pp. 1 - 12
Main Author Wang, Shang-Yung
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.07.2019
Springer
Springer Nature B.V
SpringerOpen
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Summary:Dark matter detectors with directional sensitivity have the capability to distinguish dark matter induced nuclear recoils from isotropic backgrounds, thus providing a smoking gun signature for dark matter in the Galactic halo. Motivated by recent progress in graphene and two-dimensional materials research, we propose a novel class of directional dark matter detectors utilizing graphene-based van der Waals heterostructures. A conceptual design of the detector based on graphene/hexagonal boron nitride and graphene/molybdenum disulfide heterostructures is developed and analyzed. The proposed detector has modular scalability, keV-scale detection threshold, nanometer position resolution, sensitivity down to 10  GeV / c 2 dark matter mass, and intrinsic head-tail discrimination and background rejection capabilities.
ISSN:1434-6044
1434-6052
DOI:10.1140/epjc/s10052-019-7071-2