The Oscura Experiment
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The Oscura experiment will lead the search for low-mass dark matter particles using a very large array of novel silicon Charge Coupled Devices (CCDs) with a threshold of two electrons and with a total exposure of 30 kg-yr. The R&D effort, which began in FY20, is currently entering the design phase with the goal of being ready to start construction in late 2024. Oscura will have unprecedented sensitivity to sub-GeV dark matter particles that interact with electrons, probing dark matter-electron scattering for masses down to 500 keV and dark matter being absorbed by electrons for masses down to 1 eV. The Oscura R&D effort has made some significant progress on the main technical challenges of the experiment, of which the most significant are engaging new foundries for the fabrication of the CCD sensors, developing a cold readout solution, and understanding the experimental backgrounds.
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Cited by 4 Pith papers
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In situ cryogenic characterization of proton damage in thick p-channel skipper CCDs
Thick p-channel skipper CCDs maintain excellent performance after cryogenic proton irradiation equivalent to ~10 years at L2, showing they remain radiation-hard in realistic deep-space conditions.
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Cosmogenic activation in detector materials at shallow depths
Calculations of tritium production in Ge/Si and 60Co in Cu at shallow depths with activation suppression factors for sites including SUF.
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Light-tight skipper-CCDs for X-ray detection in space
50 nm and 100 nm aluminum coatings on skipper-CCDs suppress optical light by more than 99.6 percent from 650 to 1000 nm with no efficiency loss for 5.9 and 6.4 keV X-rays.
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Thermal Emission of Dark Photons from Earth's Core
Estimates that Earth's core thermal emission of dark photons constrains new regions of the kinetic mixing parameter ε, with SENSEI/DAMIC-M already excluding some space and Oscura potentially improving by 2-3 orders of...
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