DarkNESS: developing a skipper-CCD instrument to search for Dark Matter from Low Earth Orbit

Technical Report · Mon Dec 16 04:00:00 EST 2024

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/2482540· OSTI ID:2482540

Alpine, Phoenix ^[1]; Bhatia, Samriddhi ^[1]; Chierchie, Fernando ^[2]; Drlica-Wagner, Alex ^[3]; Essig, Rouven ^[4]; Estrada, Juan ^[3]; Etzion, Erez ^[5]; Harnik, Roni ^[6]; Lembeck, Michael ^[1]; Saffold, Nathan ^[3]; Uemura, Sho ^[6]

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1. Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States)
2. Instituto de Inv. en Ing. Eléctrica (IEEE), Buenos Aires (Argentina). CONICET
3. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States); Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States)
4. Stony Brook Univ., NY (United States)
5. Tel Aviv Univ., Tel Aviv (Israel)
6. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)

The DarkNESS (Dark Matter Nano-satellite Equipped with Skipper Sensors) mission aims to deploy a skipper-CCD CubeSat Observatory to search for dark matter (DM) from Low Earth Orbit. This mission will employ novel skipper-CCDs to investigate O(keV) X-rays from decaying DM, as well as electron recoils from strongly-interacting sub-GeV DM. The DarkNESS mission will be the first space deployment of skipper-CCDs, and the DarkNESS team is developing a skipper-CCD instrument that is compatible with the CubeSat platform. DarkNESS has recently progressed from laboratory validation to a Critical Design Review (CDR) phase, with a launch opportunity anticipated in late 2025. The implementation of the DarkNESS skipper-CCD payload on the CubeSat platform will pave the way for future demonstrators of space-based imagers for X-ray and single-electron counting applications.

• Research Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP); USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program; USDOE Office of Science (SC), Office of Workforce Development for Teachers & Scientists (WDTS)
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-07CH11359
• OSTI ID: 2482540
• Report Number(s): FERMILAB-FN--1265-PPD; arXiv:2412.12084; oai:inspirehep.net:2860631
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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