2018 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Direction-sensitive dark matter detector R&D with low-background technologies

Planned Research

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Project Area	Revealing the history of the universe with underground particle and nuclear research
Project/Area Number	26104005
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)	中竜大名古屋大学, 現象解析研究センター, 特任助教 (00608888) 田中雅士早稲田大学, 理工学術院, 准教授(任期付) (30545497)
Research Collaborator	NAKAMURA Kiseki
Project Period (FY)	2014-07-10 – 2019-03-31
Keywords	暗黒物質 / 地下実験 / 低放射能技術 / 粒子検出器 / 宇宙線実験 / 素粒子実験
Outline of Final Research Achievements	This research program aimed to apply low background technologies for direction-sensitive dark matter search experiments. The low background technologies are the backbone technologies in the innovative area grant-in-aid "revealing the history of the universe with underground particle and nuclear research", where this project was one of the planned research programs. Low background detectors (gas detectors and nuclear emulsion detectors) 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 Kamioka underground laboratory was measured as one of the background studies and this activity attracted the researchers working on other experiments in Kamioka.
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。本研究は、「暗黒物質」正体解明に重要である方向に感度を持つ手法について、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、約10倍の感度で探索するという成果を得た。