Münster 2017 – scientific programme

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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik

T 79: Suche nach Dunkler Materie 3 (Direkter Nachweis)

T 79.2: Group Report

Wednesday, March 29, 2017, 17:05–17:25, VSH 19

Direct Dark Matter Search with CRESST III – Status & Perspectives — •Michael Willers for the CRESST collaboration — Physik-Department, Technische Universität München, D-85748 Garching, Germany

The CRESST experiment, located in the Gran Sasso underground laboratory (LNGS), Italy aims at the direct detection of dark matter (DM) particles. Scintillating CaWO₄ crystals operated as cryogenic detectors are used as target material for DM-nucleus scattering. The simultaneous measurement of the heat signal from the CaWO₄ crystal and the emitted scintillation light is used for particle identification. Due to it’s low nuclear recoil energy threshold the experiment is probing the low-mass region of the parameter space for spin-independent DM-nucleus scattering below ∼ 5 GeV/c² with high sensitivity. Recent results obtained using a 300 g detector with a nuclear recoil energy threshold of 307 eV provide the world best limit for DM particle masses below 1.7 GeV/c².

The goal of the CRESST III experiment is to significantly improve the sensitivity for low-mass DM particles by using optimised cryogenic detector modules, each consisting of a 24 g CaWO₄ target crystal and 20x20 mm² Silicon-on-Sapphire light detector. Phase 1 of the experiment operates 10 detector modules with a total target mass of 240 g and started taking data in August 2016. In this talk I will present the current status and future perspectives of the CRESST III experiment.