University of Pennsylvania
Department of Physics and Astronomy
High Energy Physics Seminar

Abstract

First hints at the existence of dark matter date back all the way to 1937. Recent cosmological observations have solidified our picture about the existence of dark matter as a significant constituent of the universe. No direct evidence has been found however. The PICASSO experiment (Project in CAnada to Search for Supersymmetric Objects) uses a new detection technique to find direct evidence for dark matter. The Super-heated droplet detectors used for PICASSO have a very low response to minimally ionizing particles and therefore a good suppression of background. The active mass is Fluorine which is sensitive to spin-dependent interactions with dark matter particles. The PICASSO collaboration has finished an engineering run in 2004 and published it's results last year. This year we have started with the installation of a 2kg active mass detector at SNO to learn about the progress in radio-purity and test the improved detector design. This system will enable us to increase the exposure by a factor of 100 with respect to the 2004 data.