SIGN – A Gaseous-Neon-Based Underground Physics Detector

Recent progress on the development of a room-temperature, nuclear-recoil-discriminating detector based on S cintillation and I onization in G aseous N eon ( SIGN ) will be discussed. Preliminary studies show that pure neon and neon + X mixtures (X = Ar, Xe, CH4 etc.) at pressure of > = 100 atmospheres can be used to detect radiation at low energies with excellent resolution in the range useful for a dark matter search. This also allows for the detection of coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering for neutrino energies greater than ∼ 10 MeV , thus making a large mass detector sensitive to supernovae and high energy solar neutrinos.