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UNIVERSITY OF BUCHAREST
FACULTY OF PHYSICS Guest
2026-06-11 23:58 |
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Conference: Bucharest University Faculty of Physics 2026 Meeting
Section: Nuclear and Elementary Particles Physics
Title:
Detecting Massive Dark Matter Components in Minerals as Paleo-Detectors: Requirements and Cosmogenic Radioactive Backgrounds
Authors:
I. LAZANU (1), Mihaela PARVU (1), Ioana LALAU (1,2), Sandra Denisa TUDURACHE (1), I. ELISEI (1), D. BARBU (1)
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Affiliation:
(1) University of Bucharest, Faculty of Physics, POBox MG-11 Măgurele, Ilfov, Romania
(2) NIPNE-HH, Măgurele, Ilfov, Romania
E-mail
ionel.lazanu@g.unibuc.ro
Keywords:
dark matter, detection, paleo-detectors
Abstract:
Natural minerals and rocks can record particle interactions over geological timescales and are therefore emerging as a novel tool for astroparticle physics, in particular for direct detection of the "macros" components of the Dark Matter. The idea of using ancient minerals to search for signals produced by heavy particles—recorded as latent damage tracks in solids over millions or billions of years is not new; however, the term “paleo-detectors” has only been introduced in recent years.
Previous studies have demonstrated that many minerals act as excellent solid-state nuclear track detectors and can retain these damage tracks for durations exceeding the age of the Earth (∼4.5"Gyr"), as evidenced by meteorites and fragments originating from galactic or intergalactic space.
The interaction rate in DM-nucleus reactions scales with cross section, target mass, and exposure time; thus, a single gram of an old minerals exposed to fluxes of DM for a time of the order of billion-years, can registred a similar number of events to that of a 1,000-ton detector operating for one year.
Such experiments do not require construction costs, the efforts being directed only towards identifying the geological regions of interest, in the correct extracting procedure of the samples to be investigated and in finding the optimal methods of analysis and identification of the registered signals of interest. Unfortunately, such a search is subject to hazard.
This communication aims to answer two essential questions: which are the conditions as the massive components of the dark matter be registered in minerals and which are the requirements from the physics point of view for their use of minerals as paleo-detectors.
Acknowledgement:
Part of this work was supported by the Romania- CERN Program, under contract
CERN-RO/CDI/2024-001/25.11.2024
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