Dark Matter

The nature of the main constituents of the mass of the universe is one of the outstanding riddles of cosmology and astro-particle physics. Current models explaining the evolution of the universe, and measurements of the various components of its mass, all have in common that an appreciable contribution to that mass is non-luminous and non-baryonic, and that a large fraction of this so-called dark matter must be in the form of non-relativistic massive particles (Cold Dark Matter: CDM). In the spirit of the Lake Louise Winter Institute Lectures we take a look at the latest astronomical discoveries and report on the status of direct and indirect Dark Matter searches.Comment: Proc. of the 2007 Lake Louise Winter Institute, March 2007; 14 pages, 13 figure

A Superheated Droplet Detector for Dark Matter Search

We discuss the operation principle of a detector based on superheated droplets of Freon-12 and its feasibility for the search of weakly interacting cold dark matter particles. In particular we are interested in a neutralino search experiment in the mass range from 10 to 10^4 GeV/c^2 and with a sensitivity of better than 10^-2 events/kg/d. We show that our new proposed detector can be operated at ambient pressure and room temperature in a mode where it is exclusively sensitive to nuclear recoils like those following neutralino interactions, which allows a powerful background discrimination. An additional advantage of this technique is due to the fact that the detection material, Freon-12, is cheap and readily available in large quantities. Moreover we were able to show that piezoelectric transducers allow efficient event localization in large volumes.Comment: 15 pages LATEX; 11 figures on request from [email protected] submitted to Nuclear Instruments and Methods

Neutrino Oscillation Experiments at Nuclear Reactors

In this paper I give an overview of the status of neutrino oscillation experiments performed using nuclear reactors as sources of neutrinos. I review the present generation of experiments (Chooz and Palo Verde) with baselines of about 1 km as well as the next generation that will search for oscillations with a baseline of about 100 km. While the present detectors provide essential input towards the understanding of the atmospheric neutrino anomaly, in the future, the KamLAND reactor experiment represents our best opportunity to study very small mass neutrino mixing in laboratory conditions. In addition KamLAND with its very large fiducial mass and low energy threshold, will also be sensitive to a broad range of different physics.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures To appear in the proceedings of WIN99, Cape Town, South Africa, Jan9

Bounds on the Solar Antineutrino total Flux and Energy spectrum from the SK experiment

A search for inverse beta decay electron antineutrinos has been carried out using the 825 days sample of solar data obtained at SK. The absence of a significant signal, that is, contributions to the total SK background and their angular variations has set upper bounds on a) the absolute flux of solar antineutrinos originated from ${}^8 B$ neutrinos $\Phi_{\bar{\nu}}({}^8 B)=< 1.8\times 10^5 cm^{-2} s^{-1}$ which is equivalent to an averaged conversion probability bound of P<3.5% (SSM-BP98 model) and b) their differential energy spectrum, the conversion probability is smaller than 8% for all $E_{e,vis}>6.5$ MeV going down the 5% level above $E_{e,vis}\approx 10$ MeV. It is shown that an antineutrino flux would have the net effect of enhancing the SK signal at {\em hep} neutrino energies. The magnitude of this enhancement would highly depend on the, otherwise rather uncertain, steepness of the solar neutrino spectrum at these energies.Comment: 5 pages, 3 ps figure

On the Effect of theta_{13} on the Determination of Solar Oscillation Parameters at KamLAND

If the solution to the solar neutrino puzzle falls in the LMA region, KamLAND should be able to measure with good precision the corresponding oscillation parameters after a few years of data taking. Assuming a positive signal, we study their expected sensitivity to the solar parameters (theta_{12},Delta m^2_{21}) when considered in the framework of three-neutrino mixing after taking into account our ignorance on the mixing angle theta_{13}. We find a simple ``scaling'' dependence of the reconstructed theta_{12} range with the value of theta_{13} while the Delta m^2_{12} range is practically unaffected. Our results show that the net effect is approximately equivalent to an uncertainty on the overall neutrino flux normalization of up to sim 10 %.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures. Typos corrected and reference added. Final version to appear in PL