PICASSO

The PICASSO (Project in Canada to Search for Supersymmetric Objects, or Projet d'Identification de CAndidats Supersymétriques SOmbres in french) experiment is an experiment searching for direct evidence of dark matter. It is located at SNOLAB in Canada, and consists of an international collaboration with members from the Université de Montréal, Queen's University, Indiana University South Bend and Czech Technical University in Prague, University of Alberta, Laurentian University and BTI, Chalk River, Ontario. It uses bubble detectors with Freon as the active mass. PICASSO is predominantly sensitive to spin-dependent interactions of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) with fluorine atoms.

Principle

A bubble detector is a radiation sensitive device that uses small droplets of superheated liquid that are suspended in a gel matrix.^[1] It uses the principle of a bubble chamber but since only the small droplets can undergo a phase transition at a time, the detector can stay active for much longer periods than a classic bubble chamber. When enough energy is deposited in a droplet by ionizing radiation the superheated droplet undergoes a phase transition and becomes a gas bubble. The PICASSO detectors contain Freon droplets with an average diameter of 200 µm. The bubble development in the detector is accompanied by an acoustic shock wave that is picked up by piezo-electric sensors. The main advantage of the bubble detector technique is that the detector is almost insensitive to background radiation. The detector sensitivity can be adjusted by changing the temperature of the droplets. Freon-loaded detectors are typically operated at temperatures between 15 °C and 55 °C.

The validity of the bubble detector concept has been shown in several publications.^[2] There is another similar experiment using this technique in Europe called SIMPLE.

Results

PICASSO reports results (November 2009) for spin-dependent WIMP interactions on ¹⁹F. No dark matter signal has been found, but for WIMP masses of 24 GeV/c² new stringent limits have been obtained on the spin-dependent cross section for WIMP scattering on ¹⁹F of 13.9 pb (90% CL). This result has been converted into a cross section limit for WIMP interactions on protons of 0.16 pb (90% CL). The obtained limits restrict recent interpretations of the DAMA/LIBRA annual modulation effect in terms of spin dependent interactions.^[3]

See also

• Massive compact halo object MACHO
• Higgs boson
• Micro black hole
• Robust associations of massive baryonic objects RAMBO

References

Further reading

• V. Zacek (2007). "Dark Matter". arXiv:0707.0472 [astro-ph].

External links

• PICASSO experiment website

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