NEWS : a new spherical gas detector for very low mass WIMP detection

摘要

The main characteristics of a new concept of spherical gaseous detectors,with some details on its operation are first given. The very low energythreshold of such detector has led to investigations of its potentialperformance for dark matter particle searches, in particular low mass WIMP's :original methods for energy and fiducial volume calibration and backgroundrejection are described and preliminary results obtained with a lowradioactivity prototype operated in Laboratoire Souterrain de Modane ("Frejus"lab) are presented. Typical expected sensitivities in cross section for lowmass WIMP's are also shown, and other applications briefly discussed.