The MIGDAL experiment and impact on direct detection of dark matter

by Pawel Majewski

Wednesday 12 Feb 2025, 14:30 → 15:30 Europe/Rome

Ex-ISEF/Building-Main Lecture Hall (GSSI)

Abstract

Direct dark matter search experiments increasingly rely on the Migdal effect, a rare atomic process, to enhance sensitivity to low-mass WIMP-like candidates. Despite its theoretical prediction in the late 1930s and subsequent observation in radioactive decays, the Migdal effect remains unobserved in nuclear scattering. The Migdal In Galactic Dark mAtter expLoration (MIGDAL) experiment aims to achieve the first direct and unambiguous observation of the Migdal effect from fast neutron scattering, utilising intense DT and DD generators, thereby allowing the effect to be investigated across a wide range of nuclear recoil energies.

The experiment uses an Optical Time Projection Chamber equipped with a stack of two glass-GEMs operating in a 50-Torr CF-based gas mixture. A CMOS camera, a photomultiplier tube, and a 120-indium-tin-oxide strip anode provide light and change readout, allowing precise three-dimensional reconstruction of the ionisation tracks from electron and nuclear recoils.

I will present preliminary results from the experiment’s commissioning using fast neutrons from the D-D generator at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory's Neutron Irradiation Laboratory for Electronics (NILE). I will also discuss plans for the detector upgrade and the next science run, which is planned for this summer.

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