https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/202328006001
Searching for Light Dark Matter with Aligned Carbon Nanotubes: The ANDROMeDa Project
1
Università degli studi dell’Aquila
2
Università degli studi di Roma La Sapienza
3
Università degli studi di Roma 3
4
INFN sezione di LNGS
5
INFN sezione di Roma 1
6
INFN sezione di Roma 3
* e-mail: µfederico.virzi@graduate.univaq.it
Published online: 20 March 2023
The ANDROMeDa (Aligned Nanotube Detector for Research On MeV Dark matter) project aims to develop a novel Dark Matter detector based on carbon nanotubes: the “Dark-PMT”. The detector is designed to be sensitive to dark matter particles with mass between 1 MeV and 1 GeV. The detection scheme is based on dark matter-electron scattering inside a target made of vertically-aligned carbon nanotubes. Vertically-aligned carbon nanotubes have reduced density in the direction of the tube axis, therefore the scattered electrons are expected to leave the target without being re-absorbed only if their momentum has a small enough angle with that direction, which is what happens when the tubes are parallel to the dark matter wind. This grants directional sensitivity to the detector, a unique feature in this dark matter mass range.
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2023
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
