Spin-dependent limits from the DRIFT-IId directional dark matter detector

Abstract

Data are presented from the DRIFT-IId detector operated in the Boulby Underground Science Facility in England. A 0.8 m 3 fiducial volume, containing partial pressures of 30 Torr CS 2 and 10 Torr CF 4, was exposed for a duration of 47.4 live-time days with sufficient passive shielding to provide a neutron free environment within the detector. The nuclear recoil events seen are consistent with a remaining low-level background from the decay of radon daughters attached to the central cathode of the detector. However, charge from such events must drift across the entire width of the detector, and thus display large diffusion upon reaching the readout planes of the device. Exploiting this feature, it is shown to be possible to reject energy depositions from these Radon Progeny Recoil events while still retaining sensitivity to fiducial-volume nuclear recoil events. The response of the detector is then interpreted, using the F nuclei content of the gas, in terms of sensitivity to proton spin-dependent WIMP-nucleon interactions, displaying a minimum in sensitivity cross section at 1.8 pb for a WIMP mass of 100 GeV/c 2. This sensitivity was achieved without compromising the direction sensitivity of DRIFT. © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved