Research: DARWIN R&D

- The ultimate search for dark matter and a low energy neutrino observatory

Although the existence of dark matter is well established from cosmological and astronomical observations, its nature remains uncertain The XENON experiments have conducted a long-lasting search for the favored weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) over the last years with a great sensitivity but without the success of a discovery. The DARk matter WImp search with liquid xenoN (DARWIN) will be the ultimate experiment of this technology using a multi-ton liquid xenon time projection chamber.

In case of a WIMP detection, for instance in the future XENONnT detector, DARWIN will be able to precisely measure the dark matter properties; its mass and cross section with ordinary matter. If no signal appears, DARWIN will be able to explore the parameter space for WIMP dark matter to sensitivities down to a level at which neutrino interactions with target nuclei form an impassable source of background. The ultimate sensitivity of DARWIN for WIMP searches will be at cross sections of a few 10^-49 cm² for the spin-independent WIMP-nucleon scattering case.

Due to its very large target mass, low-energy threshold and extremely low background, DARWIN will be able to perform additional rare physics searches. The list below summaries some of those:

• Neutrinoless double-beta decay of ¹³⁶Xe and other rare nuclear processes
• Coherent neutrino nucleus scattering
• The detection of supernova neutrinos
• Solar neutrinos
• Search for axion-like particles

Publications

• DARWIN: towards the ultimate dark matter detector (2016)
• Dark matter sensitivity of multi-ton liquid xenon detectors (2015)
• Neutrino physics with multi-ton scale liquid xenon detectors (2014)

The DARWIN Collaboration

• Subatech (France): group of Dominique Thers
• Laboratoire de l'Accelerateur Lineaire LAL (France): group of Carla Macolino
• Laboratoire de physique nucleaire et de hautes energie LPNHE (France): group of Luca Scotto Lavina
• University of Münster (Germany): group of Christian Weinheimer
• MPIK Heidelberg (Germany): group of Manfred Lindner
• University of Freiburg (Germany): group of Marc Schumann
• Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT, Germany): group of Guido Drexlin
• University of Mainz (Germany): group of Uwe Oberlack
• TU Dresden (Germany): group of Kai Zuber
• Heidelberg University (Germany): group of Stephanie Hansmann-Menzemer et al.
• Imperial College London (Great Britain): group of Roberto Trotta
• INFN (Italy), Sezione LNGS: group of Walter Fulgione
• INFN (Italy), Sezione di Bologna: group of G. Sartorelli
• Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel): group of Amos Breskin
• Nikhef, Amsterdam (The Netherlands): group of Patrick Decowski
• University of Coimbra (Portugal): group of Jose Matias Lopes
• Stockholm University (Sweden): group of Jan Conrad
• University of Zürich I (Switzerland): group of Laura Baudis
• University of Zürich II (Switzerland): group of Ben Kilminster
• Columbia University (USA): group of Elena Aprile
• University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA, USA): group of Hanguo Wang
• Arizona State University (USA): group of Lawrence Krauss
• Purdue University (USA): group of Rafael Lang
• Rice University (USA): group of Peter Shagin
• University of California at San Diego (UCSD, USA): group of Kaixuan Ni
• University of Chicago (USA): group of Luca Grandi
• Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (USA): group of Ethan Brown
• New York University at Abu Dhabi (NYUAD, UAE): group of Francesco Arneodo

Links

More information and current news including publications and the status of DARWIN can be found here.

Contact

• Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Manfred Lindner:
  Tel: +49 6221 516800
  E-Mail: manfred.lindner [at] mpi-hd.mpg.de
• Priv.-Doz. Dr. Teresa Marrodán Undagoitia:
  Tel: +49 6221 516803
  E-Mail: teresa.marrodan [at] mpi-hd.mpg.de
• Dr. Hardy Simgen:
  Tel: +49 6221 516530
  E-Mail: hardy.simgen [at] mpi-hd.mpg.de