# Development of Spherical Proportional Counter for light WIMP search within NEWS-G collaboration

## TL;DR

This paper discusses the development and calibration of a spherical proportional counter for detecting light WIMP dark matter particles below a few GeV, highlighting recent improvements and future plans.

## Contribution

It introduces the fabrication, calibration, and contamination mitigation methods for the next-generation 140cm SPC detector in the NEWS-G collaboration.

## Key findings

- Achieved an energy threshold of around 100 eV with the current detector.
- Set competitive limits on WIMP mass down to 0.5 GeV.
- Developed new calibration and cleaning techniques for detector enhancement.

## Abstract

The Spherical gaseous detector (or Spherical Proportional Counter, SPC) has a broad range of applications. In this work, we will focus on the light WIMP Dark Matter particle search, that is, below a few GeV. The NEWS-G collaboration operates a 60 cm diameter detector at Modane underground laboratory (LSM). Running the detector at 3 b of Neon gas, some competitive limits have been set down to 0.5 GeV WIMP mass thanks to an energy threshold of around 100 eV. To reach better performances, the next generation of SPC (140cm), NEWS-G SNO, is under construction. We will focus here on the fabrication method, the different low energy calibration methods using 37Ar, neutron and UV laser, on the cleaning methods to remove the surface contamination and mitigation of 210Pb bulk contamination.