Theses

Students are critical to any experimental program, both for its success and because experiments have inherent value for training the next generation of problem solvers. Below, please find theses from students who have contributed to the success of the PICO program. If a thesis appears to be missing, please contact the PICO web coordination team and share the information with them.

PhD Theses

Dark Matter Search with the PICO-40L Bubble Chamber Colin Moore (Queen’s U., Kingston) (2024)

Light collection as a veto for PICO and SBC dark matter searches Hector Hawley Herrera (Queen’s U., Kingston) (2024)

New ideas for tonne-scale bubble chambers and a search for superheavy dark matter with PICO-60 Benjamin Broerman (Queen’s U., Kingston) (Jan 7, 2022)

Measurements and Analysis of the Sensitivity of Superheated C3F8 Bubble Chambers to Interactions from WIMP Dark Matter Jin Miaotianzi (Northwestern University) (2019)

PICO-60: A Dark Matter Search Experiment with C33​F88​ in a Bubble Chamber Pitam Mitra (Alberta U.) (2018)

Eliminating Backgrounds in the Search for Dark Matter with the PICO-60 Bubble Chamber Dan Baxter (Northwestern University). (June, 2018)

The PICO-2L program: Towards Background-Free Dark Matter Direct Detection Using Bubble Chambers Chanpreet Amole (Queen’s U., Kingston) (Aug 22, 2017)

Recherche de la matière sombre à l’aide de détecteurs à liquides surchauffés dans le cadre de l’expérience PICO/Picasso Mathieu Laurin (U. Montreal (main)) (Mar 28, 2017)

Dark Matter Limits From a 2L C3F8 Filled Bubble Chamber Alan Robinson (University of Chicago). (2015)

Masters Theses

Performance Analysis and Quality Control for the PICO Dark Matter Program Malin, Quinn (University of Alberta) (2025)

Anomalous Background and Calibration of PICO Bubble Chamber Dark Matter Detectors Robert, Michaela Grace (Queen’s University) (2025)

Studies on Radioactive Background Mitigation for the PICO-500 Dark Matter Search Experiment Shawn Miller-Chikowski (University of Alberta) (2024)

Calibration of the Sensitivity of Perfluorocarbon Mixtures to Nuclear Recoil Jeremy Savoie (Université de Montréal) (2022)

Neutron Reactions in Superheated Fluids Clayton Blaine Coutu (University of Alberta) (2022)

Electron Recoils in the PICO Direct Dark Matter Detection Experiment Gevy Cao (Queen’s U., Kingston) (2019)

The PICO Dark Matter Search: Reflections and Projections Clarke Hardy (Queen’s U, Kingston) (2019)

Bubble Growth Dynamics For C3F8 Bubble Chambers. Alexandre LeBlanc (Laurentian University) (2019)

Monte Carlo Simulations for a Tonne-Scale Bubble Chamber to Search for Dark Matter Enriqueta Noriega Benitez (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico). (2019)

Undergraduate Theses

Effectiveness of Bubble Chambers at the Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge in Detecting Coherent Neutrino Nucleus Scattering Michael Reid (University of Chicago) (2016)

Modelling the acoustic response of PICO 2L using Finite Element Analysis Nicholas Buzinsky (University of Alberta). (2016)