Besides the challenge of helping to make any of the promising experiments discussed above work, there are a number of interesting open problems in the WIMP detection field for both theorists and experimentalists. Advances at LEP and at the Tevatron continue to place new limits on the properties of SUSY particles and may provide hints of their existence. We need an on-going reassessment of the viability of different experiment approaches (see e.g., [38]). There is still much work to be done on the interactions of neutralinos with ordinary matter (see e.g., [66]). In particular, it would be useful to consider the excitation of atomic levels through WIMP-nuclei collisions.
Advances in technology may enable new kinds of WIMP detectors.
It would be very exciting to be able to build a detectors
composed large numbers (
) spin aligned nuclei.
As this detector would have directional sensitivity, it would be
sensitive to the large angular asymmetry in the WIMP flux [63]
The development of new purification techniques in the semi-conductor
industry may help facilitate the construction of ultra-low background
Silicon and Germanium detectors. It would be very exciting
if an experiment such as DUMAND or AMANDA with their
large detection volumes could be redesigned so that
it was sensitive to SUSY relics scattering events. Because
of their large active volumes, even lower event rate
processes such as inelastic scattering are of potential
interest for these experiments.
Close collaborations between experimentalists, theorists and
technologists are need to advance the search for SUSY relics.