Speaker
Description
Minerals provide unique sensitivity for discovering composite dark matter and other cosmogenic particles, as large amounts of energy are deposited into minerals -- resulting in characteristic damage (e.g., localized amorphization, phase change, grain morphology modification). Large cross-section tracks in minerals from possible dark matter and neutrinos can have widths ranging from nanometers to microns and extend along a straight trajectory, cross-cutting mineral grains in a rock specimen. Here, we explore the opportunities afforded at hard X-ray lightsource facilities, from synchrotrons to XFELs, to visualize in 2D and 3D the damage tracks with/without preparation of an internal surface and etching. Coherent X-ray diffractive imaging (CXDI) methods, e.g., X-ray phase contrast imaging, direct imaging, and ptychography, have all the benefits of a laboratory-based X-ray μ-CT (e.g., non-destructive imaging and reconstruction of pores, particles, defects, amorphous zones, phase contrast for density mapping) with 10s nm spatial resolution and multi-scale or high through-put imaging via tiling and stitching of diffraction images. Several examples of mineral benchmarks will be discussion with applications to future dark matter track discovery campaigns at lightsources.
