Development of bubble chambers with enhanced stability and sensitivity to low-energy nuclear recoils

The viabilitv of using Bubble Chambers as dark matter particle detectors is considered. Techniques leading to the enhanced chamber stabilitv needed for this new application are described in detail. Prototype trials show that sensitivity to the low-energy nuclear recoils induced by Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMP) is possible in conditions of extreme insensitivity to minimum ionizing backgrounds. An understanding of detector response is demonstrated using existing theoretical models. We briefly comment on the prospects for detection of supersymmetric dark matter with large CF3I chambers. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.