Isla Vista Bubble Chamber (IVBC)

Over the last two decades, as experiments such as LZ have set increasingly robust and stringent limits on what a WIMP mass could be, the field has started pushing into the light-dark matter regime. To explore this new regime, novel detection techniques are being developed that are optimized for identifying lighter particles, often using hydrogen as a detection medium. In alignment with this direction, we are developing a hydrogen bubble chamber that could probe low-mass, spin-dependent dark matter by leveraging the bubble chamber's unique inherent background rejection capabilities–an advantage absent in many existing WIMP searches. The Isla Vista Bubble Chamber (IVBC) is a prototype liquid nitrogen chamber that utilizes gaseous helium as a contact gas to maintain temperature control. In this talk, I will describe the design and operation of the IVBC, laying the groundwork for a future hydrogen bubble chamber capable of probing low-mass, spin-dependent dark matter interactions.