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Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) may constitute most of thematter in the Universe. The ability to detect the directionality of recoilnuclei will considerably facilitate detection of WIMPs. In this paper wepropose a novel type of dark matter detector: detectors made of DNA or RNAcould provide nanometer resolution for tracking, an energy threshold of 0.5keV, and can operate at room temperature. When a WIMP from the Galactic Haloelastically scatters off of a nucleus in the detector, the recoiling nucleusthen traverses hundreds of strings of single stranded nucleic acids (ssNA) withknown base sequences and severs ssNA strands along its trajectory. The locationof the break can be identified by amplifying and identifying the segments ofcut ssNA using techniques well known to biologists. Thus the path of therecoiling nucleus can be tracked to nanometer accuracy. In one such detectorconcept, the transducers are nanometer-thick Au-foils of 1m x 1m, and thedirection of recoiling nuclei is measured by "NA Tracking Chamber" consistingof ordered array of ssNA strands. Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) and ssNAsequencing are used to read-out the detector. The proposed detector is smallerand cheaper than other alternatives: 1 kg of gold and 0.1 to 4 kg of ssNA(depending on length and strand density), packed into 0.01m$^3$, can be used tostudy 10 GeV WIMPs. A variety of other detector target elements could be usedin this detector to optimize for different WIMP masses and to identify WIMPproperties. By leveraging advances in molecular biology, we aim to achieveabout 1,000-fold better spatial resolution than in conventional WIMP detectorsat reasonable cost.

New Dark Matter Detectors using DNA or RNA for Nanometer Tracking