We are going to present the CYGNO experiment whose goal is the development of a high precision optical readout gaseous TPC for directional Dark Matter search and solar neutrino spectroscopy, to be hosted at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS). CYGNO (a CYGNus TPC with Optical readout) fits into the wider context of the CYGNUS proto-collaboration, for the development of a Galactic...
As dark matter experiments grow in size and more of the parameter space available to WIMPs is investigated and excluded, it is necessary to plan ahead to circumvent the looming neutrino fog, a goal further motivated by the recent claims of 8B hints seen across the much larger Xenon-based dark matter experiments. For an experiment which is only capable of reconstructing the recoil's energy,...
Particle detectors with sensitivity to the directions of low‑energy nuclear recoils open access to previously unprobed physics. Directional detection of coherent elastic neutrino–nucleus scattering (CEvNS) would enable searches for potential beyond‑the‑Standard‑Model (BSM) effects in this interaction and provide a critical capability for exploring regions of dark‑matter parameter space...
NEWAGE is a world leading direct dark matter search experiment with directional analysis. The experiment has been conducted in the Kamioka underground observatory. We use a 30 × 30 × 41 cm^3 scale gaseous Time Projection Chamber (TPC) with micro-Pixel Chamber (μ-PIC) which have two-dimentional strip-type readout electrodes with a pitch or 400 μm. In order to improve the sensitivity, BG...
NEWAGE is a direction-sensitive WIMP search experiment using a three-dimensional tracking gaseous time projection chamber. We have developed C/N-1.0, a next-generation detector with a volume of approximately 1 m³, for use in the forthcoming underground dark matter search. Prior to its underground deployment, we conducted surface-laboratory operation tests to evaluate its performance. In this...
In this talk, we will review the current status and report about technical R&D of NEWSdm project using the super-fine grain nuclear emulsion.
Negative ion drift is an attractive option for minimising diffusion in large micropatterned gaseous Time Projection Chambers. The use of select electronegative gases to create negative ions introduces technical challenges, most notably, a reduction in gain when compared to conventional gas mixtures. In this talk, I will report on measurements that demonstrate negative ion generation via...
Optical time projection chambers (OTPCs) with GEM amplification are well suited for applications requiring fine spatial granularity for particle track reconstruction. OTPCs reconstruct tracks by measuring the scintillation light produced in the electron avalanche. When simulating tracks in an OTPC, it is often implicitly assumed that scintillation light serves as an accurate proxy of the...
In my talk I will present the possibility to set new constraints on axion-like particles using LIME or CYGNO04. I first studied the three production channels of axions in the Sun: photon coalescence, the Primakoff process, and plasmon decay, and reconstructed the resulting axion flux at Earth. then I focus on the population of axions that remain gravitationally trapped around the Sun, which...
The spherical proportional counter is a gaseous detector which is utilised for direct dark matter searches by the NEWS-G collaboration. The use of light gaseous targets, including He, CH4, Ne, etc., combined with a low energy threshold, enable access to the mass range from 0.05 to 10 GeV. The detector’s simple design also facilitates radio-pure detector construction. Thanks to the radial...
Recent geophysical studies indicate that the Earth's interior is not homogeneous but contains various structures. Among these, the most prominent are the Large Low-Shear-Velocity Provinces (LLSVPs), anomalous mantle domains extending over more than a thousand kilometers. The origin of LLSVPs is uncertain, but one hypothesis is that they formed from radiogenic heating produced by enrichment of...
The Nano Imaging Tracker (NIT) is a super-fine-grained nuclear emulsion detector with excellent spatial resolution, capable of reconstructing recoil nucleus directions for track lengths as short as 100 nm, corresponding to energies of several tens of keV. By exploiting hydrogen contained within the NIT itself as a target, we are advancing neutron spectra measurements including the sub-MeV...
A precise characterization of the environmental neutron spectrum in underground laboratories is crucial for designing future large-scale detectors and improving background modelling in rare-event searches. While fast neutrons already pose a significant background, thermal neutrons are expected to gain importance due to neutron-induced activation of detector materials. Previous flux estimates...
Ag-zeolite is a zeolite modified with silver through ion exchange. Since around 2020, certain Ag-zeolites have been reported to exhibit excellent xenon adsorption in air, and since 2023, some have shown strong radon adsorption in air. Our group has been developing original Ag-zeolites since 2023 for radon removal in underground experiments, testing their performance in air, xenon, and...
Measuring radon emanation from detector materials is a key method for controlling radon contamination, a significant source of background in rare event physics experiments. Methods for measuring radon emanation are well established but have predominantly focused on the 222Rn isotope, the dominant radon isotope for these backgrounds. However, measurements of 220Rn (thoron), the second most...
In underground astrophysics experiments such as neutrino, dark matter, and double beta decay searches, it is important to use the ultra-low radioactive impurities in the material of the detectors. We have been developing the gaseous TPC with the μ-PIC (or micropattern gaseous detectors: MPGD) and optics to measure the emissivity of alpha particles from the material surface in a low radioactive...
Negative Ion Drift (NID) offers a powerful solution to the intrinsic diffusion limitations of large gaseous Time Projection Chambers, enabling near-thermal diffusion without the need for magnetic fields and providing additional timing information through multi-species ion transport, which allows precise fiducialization along the drift direction. We will report the first optical observation of...
Low pressure gaseous Time Projection Chambers (TPCs) are seen as a viable technology for directional dark matter searches. Recent success with novel Multi-Mesh Thick Gaseous Electron Multiplier MMThGEM structures in challenging gases like SF6, and mixtures thereof, have prompted further investigation into micro-mesh structures for charge amplification. Modern lithography techniques used to...
Low pressure gas TPCs operating with negative ion drift (NID) provide numerous advantages required for low energy rare searches requiring directionality. Near-thermal diffusion and slow drift velocities enable the excellent spatial resolution required to resolve low energy particle tracks in 3D. The NID components most commonly studied are CS2 and SF6, which can be added to other target gases...
Fifteen years of the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) data in the halo region of the Milky Way (MW) are analyzed to search for gamma rays from dark matter annihilation. Gamma-ray maps within the region of interest (|l| < 60 deg, 10 deg < |b| < 60 deg) are modeled using known components plus a halo-like component. A statistically significant halo-like excess is found with a spectral peak around...
Strong constraints from direct detection experiments have motivated growing interest in sub-GeV dark matter. Although such light dark matter cannot be detected in ordinary direct detection experiments, it becomes detectable if it is boosted by an external mechanism, making directional information especially valuable. In many scenarios, boosted dark matter shows characteristic arrival...
Particle detectors with sensitivity to the directions of low‑energy nuclear recoils open access to previously unprobed physics. Directional detection of coherent elastic neutrino–nucleus scattering (CEvNS) would enable searches for potential beyond‑the‑Standard‑Model (BSM) effects in this interaction and provide a critical capability for exploring regions of dark‑matter parameter space...
Optical-readout TPCs produce megapixel-scale images whose rich topological information is essential for rare-event searches, yet their size makes real-time data selection increasingly challenging as detectors grow in resolution and throughput. This contribution presents an exploratory baseline study of an unsupervised, reconstruction-based anomaly-detection strategy designed to address this...
The contribution presents the design and commissioning of a new Data Acquisition (DAQ) system for the CYGNO-04 demonstrator of the CYGNO experiment at LNGS, which aims for the directional detection of rare low energy recoils for dark matter detection and neutrino spectroscopy by means of a large gaseous TPC with optical readout. The system is tailored to such a gaseous optical TPC and...
The search for light dark matter requires detectors capable of sensing extremely small energy deposits while also providing information about the direction of the incoming particles. Quantum sensors offer a promising path toward this goal due to their exceptional sensitivity, low noise characteristics, and ability to measure minute spatial or temporal signals. In this study, we explore a...
Direct dark matter searches using gaseous detectors observe nuclear recoil signals induced by dark matter interactions. However, these detectors measure only the ionization loss, which differs from the actual recoil energy. To evaluate this difference, we conducted an experiment to determine the ionization yield, defined as the ratio of ionization loss to nuclear recoil energy. The measurement...
In underground astroparticle experiments, radioactive impurities contained in detector materials should be reduced to extremely low levels. This study focuses on the analysis of alpha particles originating from material surfaces. We have been developing a time projection chamber (TPC) dedicated to detecting alpha-particle tracks from material surfaces. The TPC employs an optical readout system...
The Migdal effect associated with nuclear scattering is expected to enhance the sensitivity of direct dark matter searches. We aim to observe such events by irradiating a high-pressure Xe gas Time Projection Chamber (TPC) with neutrons. Background reduction is achieved by selecting neutron-nucleus elastic scattering events using liquid scintillators. In this poster, we report the analysis of...
We present a large-volume, wide–field-of-view Time Projection Chamber (TPC) for hard X-ray polarimetry, derived from technology developed for directional dark-matter searches. The detector uses a triple-GEM stack and optical readout: secondary scintillation is imaged by a scientific CMOS (sCMOS) camera, enabling 3D reconstruction of photoelectron tracks in gas. The prototype (3.7 cm radius, 5...
The CYGNO collaboration is developing a novel approach to direct dark matter searches based on a high-resolution optical Time Projection Chamber (TPC). Operating at atmospheric pressure in a He:CF₄ (60:40) gas mixture and equipped with a triple-GEM amplification stage, the detector records the scintillation light produced during electron avalanches. A hybrid optical readout, combining PMT...
We evaluate the local dark matter density and velocity distribution using the public data from IllustrisTNG, one of the cosmological simulations. In direct detection experiments, the local dark matter density and velocity distribution are used, and the evaluation of the experimental results depends strongly on these quantities. Astronomical observations suggest that the local dark matter...
The MIRACLUE experiment aims to observe the Migdal effect using a gaseous Time Projection Chamber (TPC) with micro-Pixel Chamber (μ-PIC). To manage the multi-channel readout requirements, we developed an integrated control and operation framework for multiple stand-alone existing DAQ boards. This poster presents an overview of the system, its configuration, and its operation during a neutron...
At the Kamioka Underground Laboratory, an inter-university facility named KERNEL has been organized to search for extremely rare phenomena. This facility is necessary for the successful construction of the ultra-low BG detector: KamLAND2. The facility will include a CLASS1 super-clean room, a clean air system, an ultra pure water system, and the experimental space for developing low...
We present an experimental study of electron-recoil angular resolution using the BEAST gaseous time projection chambers (TPCs) with pixel ASIC charge readout, which measure the three-dimensional ionization distribution of electron tracks. The goal of this work is to validate a previously developed angular-resolution model that extends the commonly used multiple-scattering formalism to...
Machine Learning methods are becoming more prevalent in physics for a variety of tasks, and some have already been demonstrated within the directional recoil detection community for reconstruction and direction prediction tasks. We will propose a modern architecture to predict direction and class of recoils in one model. Further, we will propose a generative ML model, based on a...
Q-Pix is an innovative approach for measuring directional ionization and, potentially, scintillation signals in a TPC. Originally conceived as a technology for the DUNE far detector, it may be of interest to other rare-event, large-volume tracking experiments, especially those in which low data rates and low power consumption are required. I will present the Q-Pix technical concept as well as...
The Migdal effect associated with nuclear scattering is very important in the dark matter search. In order to experimentally verify the Migdal effect, we are proceeding MIRACLUE experiment: searching for Migdal effect by using poistion sensitive gaseous detectors. In this talk, we will report on the status of the experiment using xenon gas TPC.
Migdal effect refers to a rare process in which atomic ionization or excitation occurs when a nucleus suddenly moves. Since this process can produce an additional electronic signal, it is expected to improve the sensitivity to low-mass WIMPs (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles). However, Migdal effect induced by nuclear recoils has not yet been experimentally confirmed. The MIRACLUE...
The Migdal effect has attracted considerable attention in recent years due to its significant contribution to the sensitivity of sub-GeV dark matter detectors in theoretical calculations. This report will present our experiment that directly observes the Migdal effect using the gas micropixel detector designed by MARVEL group at a D-D neutron source. We will introduce the detector structure...
The Migdal In Galactic Dark mAtter expLoration (MIGDAL) was established in 2019 to experimentally verify, under optimal conditions, the theoretical prediction of the effect postulated by A. Migdal in 1939 and reformulated for dark matter searches by M. Ibe in 2017. The MIGDAL experiment aims to unambiguously observe and measure the Migdal effect across multiple elements relevant to dark...
This presentation focuses on the primary background processes inherent in the direct search for the Migdal effect using fast neutron beams with a low-pressure time projection chamber (TPC). We will discuss the simulation, characterisation, and rejection of three primary backgrounds that can mimic this signal. First is the challenge of neutron inelastic scattering on the detector target and...
Many dark matter experiments are exploiting the Migdal effect, a rare atomic process, to improve sensitivity to low-mass WIMP-like dark matter candidates. However, this process is yet to be directly observed in nuclear scattering. The MIGDAL experiment aims to make the first unambiguous measurement of the Migdal effect in nuclear scattering. A low-pressure optical Time Projection Chamber is...
The Migdal effect predicts the possible deposition of electron recoil energy in neutral particle-induced nuclear recoil interactions. This effect can lead to substantial gain of sensitivity to low-mass dark matter interactions in xenon-based dark matter experiments. A direct measurement of this effect in liquid xenon is highly desired to confirm its applicability to direct search experiments....
We present calculations of the Migdal effect using the Dirac-Hartree-Fock method without relying on the dipole approximation, enabling robust predictions at higher nuclear recoil velocities than previously accessible. We demonstrate that multiple ionisation may become significant for fast neutrons and derive semi-inclusive probabilities for processes producing one hard electron above a defined...
Directly detecting and characterizing the Migdal effect signature in gas time projection chambers (TPCs) remains challenging due to the overlapping nature of its electron recoil (ER) and nuclear recoil (NR) components. This talk will present two complementary machine learning frameworks developed and deployed within the MIGDAL collaboration that together enable real-time detection and...