9301522 Avignone This U.S.-Argentina Cooperative Science award will support travel and related expenses for collaboration by Frank Avignone of the University of South Carolina and Daniel Di Gregorio of the TANDAR nuclear laboratory in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The project aims to install a detector, shielding, and data acquisition system for exploring cold dark matter in the universe. According to recent research, the effects of elastic scattering of cold dark matter candidate particles in the Earth imply that repeating existing searches at southern latitudes would render them far more sensitive. Also, for a significant range of cold dark matter mass and coupling strength, data from detectors sensitive to cold dark matter by nuclear recoil from elastic scattering will have observable diurnal modulations. This award will support two senior investigators, one recent doctoral recipient, and one graduate student on the U.S. side to participate in installing and obtaining data from a cold dark matter detector facility in southern Argentina. Both sides will benefit from training of junior investigators, access to fundamental research data in the Southern Hemisphere, and exchange of technologies. ***
