2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Direction-sensitive dark matter search

Planned Research

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Project Area	Unraveling the History of the Universe and Matter Evolution with Underground Physics
Project/Area Number	19H05806
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas (Research in a proposed research area)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Review Section	Science and Engineering
Research Institution	Kobe University
Principal Investigator	MIUCHI Kentaro 神戸大学, 理学研究科, 准教授 (80362440)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	中竜大東邦大学, 理学部, 准教授 (00608888) 小川洋日本大学, 理工学部, 助手 (20374910)
Project Period (FY)	2019-06-28 – 2024-03-31
Keywords	暗黒物質 / 地下実験 / 低放射能技術 / ガスTPC / 原子核乾板
Outline of Final Research Achievements	This research program performed direction-sensitive dark matter search experiments making use of low background technologies. The low background technologies are the backbone technologies in the innovative area grant-in-aid "Unraveling the History of the Universe and Matter Evolution with Underground Physics", where this project was one of the planned research programs. Low background detectors (gas detectors and nuclear emulsion detectors), as well as low background gas filter were developed as planned. A direction-sensitive dark matter search experiment in Kamioka underground laboratory provided dark matter limits about one order of magnitude more stringent than previous direction-sensitive limits. Ambient neutron flux in surface and underground environment at Gran Sasso National Laboratory were measured as one of the background studies and a first direction-sensitive dark matter search with nuclear emulsions were carried out.
Free Research Field	宇宙線物理学
Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements	宇宙を構成する物質のうちで、我々の知っている物質の5倍以上存在すると言われながらもその正体が不明の「暗黒物質」。その正体解明は、宇宙の大きな謎として宇宙物理・素粒子物理に課せられた大きな課題であり、「宇宙は何からできているのか」という根源的な問いに対する挑戦である。新学術領域の基盤技術「低放射能技術」を取り入れることで、本研究では、暗黒物質正体解明の鍵となる方向に感度を持つ手法で、これまでの約10倍の感度で探索するという成果を得た。