Mineral detectors have been proposed for a wide variety of applications, including searching for dark matter, measuring various fluxes of astrophysical neutrinos over gigayear timescales, monitoring nuclear reactors, and nuclear disarmament protocols; both as paleo-detectors using natural minerals that could have recorded the traces of nuclear recoils for timescales as long as a billion years and as detectors recording nuclear recoil events on laboratory timescales using natural or artificial minerals.
At this workshop, we will discuss the vast physics potential of mineral detectors, the progress in experimental studies, and the numerous challenges lying ahead on the path towards mineral detection. These include a better understanding of the formation and annealing of recoil defects in crystals; identifying the best classes of minerals and, for paleo-detectors, understanding their geology; modeling and control of the relevant backgrounds; developing, combining, and scaling up imaging and data analysis techniques; and many others.
During the last years, the MDvDM community has grown rapidly and gained attention. Small-scale experimental efforts focused on establishing various microscopic readout techniques are underway at institutions in Asia, Europe and North America. The third MDvDM workshop will bring together theoretical and experimental physicists, material scientists, and geologists to discuss the state of the art of the emerging field of Mineral Detection of Neutrinos and Dark Matter.
Previous MDvDM workshops:
