Speaker
Description
The development and use of low-background anisotropic scintillators can offer a unique way to study the Dark Matter (DM) particle component in the galactic halo, which is able to induce nuclear recoils through the directionality technique. This approach is based on studying the correlation between the arrival direction of DM candidates able to induce a nuclear recoil and the Earth’s motion in the galactic frame. In particular, the ZnWO$_{4}$ crystal scintillator has unique characteristics, which makes it an excellent candidate for this type of research. In fact, both the light output and the scintillation pulse shape depend on the impinging direction of heavy particles (such as $\alpha$ particles and nuclear recoils) with respect to the crystal axes and can supply two independent modes to study the directionality and discriminate the $\beta/\gamma$ radiation. The response of the ZnWO$_{4}$ scintillators to nuclear recoils induced by neutron scattering was studied and the anisotropic response was measured at 5.4 $\sigma$ C.L. The sensitivity of such an approach for DM directionality investigation will be outlined.
