On the potentiality of the ZnWO4 anisotropic detectors to measure the directionality of Dark Matter

Abstract

In the anisotropic scintillators the light output and the pulse shape for heavy particles (p, α, nuclear recoils) depend on the direction with respect to the crystal axes; the response to γ/β radiation is isotropic instead. This feature offers the possibility to study the directionality approach, which is applicable in the particular case of those Dark Matter candidate particles inducing just nuclear recoils. Among the anisotropic scintillators, the ZnWO4 has unique features, which make it an excellent candidate for this type of research, and there is still plenty of room for the improvement of its performances. In this paper the possibility of a low background pioneer experiment (named ADAMO-Anisotropic detectors for DArk Matter Observation) to exploit deep underground the directionality approach by using anisotropic ZnWO4 scintillators is discussed. © 2013 The Author(s).