High precision imaging TPC for directional Dark Matter search and beyond

Elisabetta Baracchini (Gran Sasso Science Institute, INFN) —
Presentation: Full Professor at the Gran Sasso Science Institute and INFN Researcher, Elisabetta Baracchini began her scientific activity in high energy physics experiments at accelerators searching for New Physics signals beyond the Standard Model. In 2015 she received a Marie Skłodowska Curie Individual Fellowship for the study of innovative gases for directional Dark Matter searches, later complemented in 2018 by a 2MEUROs ERC Consolidator Grant for the INITIUM project, which represents the consolidation of these activities in an original experiment for dark matter research at the INFN Gran Sasso National Laboratories and that today counts more than 60 collaborators from 4 countries. More recently she has obtained national fundings for two new projects of about 1MEUROs for the development of an innovative large field of view x-ray polarimeter and for the measurement of the Migdal effect, both exploiting the same experimental technique under development for directional DM searches.
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Abstract: We are going to discuss high precision 3D Time Projection Chambers (TPCs) with optical readout via PMTs and scientific CMOS cameras, illustrating how the excellent imaging capabilities of such devices allow for precise measurement of track direction and topology of nuclear and electron recoils down to O(keV) energies. We are going to show how these features, combined with the use of Negative Ion Drift (NID) or low diffusion (“cold”) electron gases, can enable the development of large detectors for directional Dark Matter searches, of which the CYGNO experiment represents a demonstrator. We will show how large recoil imaging TPC for DM searches, thanks to the directional capabilities applied to electron recoils, can serve also as solar neutrino detectors with event-by-event energy determination, and an energy threshold possibly lower than Borexino. We will further illustrate how the experimental technique under development for CYGNO can be attractively applied to other physics searches, such as the measurement of the Migdal effect or innovative large field of view x-ray polarimeter, demonstrating how high precision imaging TPCs can open the doors for new classes of observation with broad applications across particle and astroparticle physics.