Searching for Light Dark Matter with Aligned Carbon Nanotubes: The ANDROMeDa Project

Abstract

The ANDROMeDa (Aligned Nanotube Detector for Research On MeV Dark matter) project aims to develop a novel Dark Matter detector based on carbon nanotubes: the “Dark-PMT”. The detector is designed to be sensitive to dark matter particles with mass between 1 MeV and 1 GeV. The detection scheme is based on dark matter-electron scattering inside a target made of vertically-aligned carbon nanotubes. Vertically-aligned carbon nanotubes have reduced density in the direction of the tube axis, therefore the scattered electrons are expected to leave the target without being re-absorbed only if their momentum has a small enough angle with that direction, which is what happens when the tubes are parallel to the dark matter wind. This grants directional sensitivity to the detector, a unique feature in this dark matter mass range.