Speaker
Description
The PICO collaboration uses bubble chambers to search for dark matter. The degree of superheat is chosen so that the detectors are insensitive to electron recoils; only nuclear recoils above several keV produce bubbles. C3F8 is used as the target fluid; the fluorination is ideally suited for investigating spin-dependent WIMP-proton interactions. The PICO-40L detector, currently being commissioned at the SNOLAB underground research facility, employs a "Right Side Up" geometry, putting the detector compression and expansion system below the target fluid in order to suppress backgrounds seen in previous PICO detectors. PICO-500, the next-generation detector with a projected exposure on the scale of a ton-year, is nearing the installation phase at SNOLAB. This talk will give an overview of the PICO detectors, including improvements in design and background mitigation techniques, as well as results from early commissioning of PICO-40L.
