What is DM-Ice?

Highlights_JUNE

DM-Ice is a new experimental initiative.  By building a 250 kg array of NaI crystals within the volume of the IceCube neutrino detector, DM-Ice will provide a direct check of the DAMA dark matter result.  DAMA/LIBRA and its predecessor, DAMA/NaI, are the only experiments that claim to have observed dark matter interacting with ordinary matter.  The colored curves show the sensitivity for a 2 year exposure of DM-Ice, under the assumption of different background levels (N0).  A null result achieved in 2 years time can exclude the dark matter interpretation of DAMA data (gray patches).  The plots were created by Raymond Co, a 2010 Fermilab SULI student, while working with Lauren Hsu and Jonghee Yoo.  This work, along with more details on DM-ice, appears in arXiv:1106.1156

– Lauren Hsu