Dark Matter searches: an update on COUPP and CoGeNT

by Juan Collar (University of Chicago)

Monday 28 Jun 2010, 14:15 → 15:15 Europe/Berlin

Auditorium

COUPP employs bubble chambers to look for medium to heavy mass Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs). This technique offers the best intrinsic rejection of minimum ionizing backgrounds available to any dark matter detector. Very recently, an additional acoustic rejection of alpha-induced bubbles has been demonstrated. As a result of this, we expect COUPP to become one of the most sensitive dark matter detectors for both spin-dependent and -independent WIMP-nucleus couplings already during 2010. CoGeNT uses P-type Point Contact (PPC) germanium detectors and is designed to look for light WIMP candidates below ~10 GeV in rest mass. We'll discuss a new approach to reject surface events in PPCs, and some "interesting" irreducible backgrounds observed during their deep underground operation, as well as other applications for these devices in neutrino physics.