New Experiments With Spheres-Gas (NEWS-G) is a direct dark matter detection experiment using Spherical
Proportional Counters (SPCs) with light noble gases to search for low-mass Weakly Interacting Massive
Particles (WIMPs). We report the results from the first physics run taken at the Laboratoire Souterrain
de Modane (LSM) with SEDINE, a 60 cm diameter prototype SPC operated with a mixture of Ne + CH4
(0.7 %) at 3.1 bars for a total exposure of 9.6 kg · days. New constraints are set on the spin-independent
WIMP-nucleon scattering cross-section in the sub-GeV/c2 mass region. We exclude cross-sections above
4.4 × 10-37 cm2 at 90 % confidence level (C.L.) for a 0.5 GeV/c2 WIMP. The competitive results obtained
with SEDINE are promising for the next phase of the NEWS-G experiment: a 140 cm diameter SPC to be
installed at SNOLAB by summer 2018.
Revised: April 9, 2018 |
Published: January 31, 2018
Citation
Amaud Q., D.M. Asner, J.P. Bard, A. Brossard, B. Cai, M. Chapellier, and M. Clark, et al. 2018.First results from the NEWS-G direct dark matter serch experiment at the LSM.Astroparticle Physics 97.PNNL-SA-130372.doi:10.1016/j.astropartphys.2017.10.009