CYGNO: a gaseous TPC with optical readout for dark matter directional search

TL;DR

The CYGNO project develops a gaseous TPC with optical readout to detect low-energy dark matter and solar neutrinos, offering directional sensitivity and background discrimination to improve detection limits.

Contribution

This work introduces a novel gaseous TPC with optical readout for directional dark matter detection, enhancing sensitivity to low-mass particles and background rejection.

Findings

Demonstrator with 1 m³ volume using He:CF₄ gas at atmospheric pressure.

Optical readout enables detailed event topology reconstruction.

Potential to surpass the neutrino floor in dark matter searches.

Abstract

The CYGNO project has the goal to use a gaseous TPC with optical readout to detect dark matter and solar neutrinos with low energy threshold and directionality. The CYGNO demonstrator will consist of 1 m 3 volume filled with He:CF 4 gas mixture at atmospheric pressure. Optical readout with high granularity CMOS sensors, combined with fast light detectors, will provide a detailed reconstruction of the event topology. This will allow to discriminate the nuclear recoil signal from the background, mainly represented by low energy electron recoils induced by radioactivity. Thanks to the high reconstruction efficiency, CYGNO will be sensitive to low mass dark matter, and will have the potential to overcome the neutrino floor, that ultimately limits non-directional dark matter searches.