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Projects attempting the direct detection of WIMP dark matter share the common problem of eliminating sources of background or using techniques to distinguish background events from true signals. Although experiments such as DarkSide have achieved essentially background free exposures through careful choice of materials and application of efficient veto techniques, there will still be a high burden of proof to convince the greater scientific community when a discovery is claimed. A directional signature in the data would provide extremely strong evidence to distinguish a true WIMP signal from that of an isotropic background. Two-phase argon time projection chambers (TPCs) provide an experimental apparatus which can both be scaled to the ton-scale size required to accommodate the low cross-section expected for WIMP interactions and have an anisotropy that could be exploited to evaluate the polar angles of the resulting nuclear recoils from WIMP collisions with target nuclei. Our studies show that even a modest resolution in the polar angle reconstruction would offer a powerful tool to detect a directional signature. In this contribution, the status of the ReD experiment, which is under construction at Naples University, will be also shown. The aim of the project is to assess and enhance the directionality of two-phase argon TPCs. ReD will use a small TPC exposed to a beam of mono-energetic neutrons to study the so called “columnar recombination” in liquid argon. This development could have high impact on the future experiments in the field, opening up the potential to find conclusive evidence for dark matter or disprove the WIMP hypothesis at and above the mass range explored by planned accelerator experiments.

Geo-neutrino studies are based on theoretical estimates of geo-neutrino spectra. We propose a method for a direct measurement of the energy distribution of antineutrinos from decays of long-lived radioactive isotopes. We present preliminary results for the geo-neutrinos from Bi-214 decay, a process which accounts for about one half of the total geo-neutrino signal. The feeding probability of the lowest state of Bi-214 - the most important for geo-neutrino signal - is found to be p_0 = 0.177 \pm 0.004 (stat) ^{+0.003}_{-0.001} (sys), under the hypothesis of Universal Neutrino Spectrum Shape (UNSS). This value is consistent with the (indirect) estimate of the Table of Isotopes (ToI). We show that achievable larger statistics and reduction of systematics should allow to test possible distortions of the neutrino spectrum from that predicted using the UNSS hypothesis. Implications on the geo-neutrino signal are discussed., Comment: 8 pages RevTex format, 8 figures and 2 tables. Submitted to PRC