Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) may constitute a large fractionof the matter in the Universe. There are excess events in the data ofDAMA/LIBRA, CoGeNT, CRESST-II, and recently CDMS-Si, which could be consistentwith WIMP masses of approximately 10 GeV/c2. However, for MDM > 10 GeV/c2 nullresults of the CDMS-Ge, XENON, and LUX detectors may be in tension with thepotential detections for certain dark matter scenarios and assuming a certainlight response. We propose the use of a new class of biological dark matter (DM) detectors tofurther examine this light dark matter hypothesis, taking advantage of newsignatures with low atomic number targets, Two types of biological DM detectorsare discussed here: DNA-based detectors and enzymatic reactions (ER) baseddetectors. In the case of DNA-based detectors, we discuss a new implementation.In the case of ER detectors, there are four crucial phases of the detectionprocess: a) change of state due to energy deposited by a particle; b)amplification due to the release of energy derived from the action of an enzymeon its substrate; c) sustainable but non-explosive enzymatic reaction; d)self-termination due to the denaturation of the enzyme, when the temperature israised. This paper provides information of how to design as well as optimizethese four processes.
展开▼
