I Detecting WIMPs with superconductors?

[jcap]

If a weakly-interacting massive particle interacted with an electron in a classical superconductor would it break up a "cooper pair" and thus lead to extra electrical resistance?

If so perhaps the loss of superconductivity in a 2-d array of superconducting wires could be used to detect the flux of dark-matter WIMPs across the array? As the 2-d array of wires rotates with the Earth through the WIMPS one might detect a daily fluctuation in the conductivity of the wires.

PS Maybe the wires have to be very close to their "transition" temperature for such a detector to work?

 

[NFuller]

The problem is in the phrase

weakly-interacting massive particle interacted

Dark matter particles have not been observed to directly interact with anything and this is the whole problem with detecting it. If dark matter is there and is indeed very weakly interacting, your setup may need a superconducter the size of an ocean to detect a single particle.

 

[ZapperZ]

If a weakly-interacting massive particle interacted with an electron in a classical superconductor would it break up a "cooper pair" and thus lead to extra electrical resistance?

This is a huge, and unverified assumption.

If a WIMP can interact with an electron, then we would have seen it EASILY by now. We won't need a superconductor. Having a superconductor here adds nothing to the ability to detect such a thing.

Zz.

 

[mfb]

WIMPs interacting weakly with electrons are not impossible - but the interaction has to be very rare. We would expect large momentum transfer, and there we have better detection methods.