High precision measurements were made of reduced mobility, lateral and longitudinal diffusion of CS2- negative ions in 40 Torr CS2 and a 30 - 10 Torr CS2 - CF4 gas mixture. The reduced mobility was found to be 353.0 +/- 0.5 cm^2 Torr / s V in CS2 and
397.4 +/- 0.7 cm^2 Torr / s V in the CS2 - CF4 gas mixture at STP. The lateral diffusion temperatures for these two gases (295 +/- 15 K and 297 +/- 6 K) were found to be in good agreement with room temperature. By contrast longitudinal diffusion temperature was found to be slightly elevated (319 +/- 10 (stat) +/- 8 (sys) K and 310 +/- 20 (stat) +/- 6 (sys) K) though given the errors, room temperature diffusion can not be ruled out. For lateral diffusion significant capture distances (0.21 +/- 0.07 mm and 0.15 +/- 0.03 mm) were measured while for longitudinal diffusion the results were not conclusive.
We present the first detailed simulations of the head-tail effect relevant to directional Dark Matter searches. Investigations of the location of the majority of the ionization charge as being either at the beginning half (tail) or at the end half (h
ead) of the nuclear recoil track were performed for carbon and sulphur recoils in 40 Torr negative ion carbon disulfide and for fluorine recoils in 100 Torr carbon tetrafluoride. The SRIM simulation program was used, together with a purpose-written Monte Carlo generator, to model production of ionizing pairs, diffusion and basic readout geometries relevant to potential real detector scenarios, such as under development for the DRIFT experiment. The results clearly indicate the existence of a head-tail track asymmetry but with a magnitude critically influenced by two competing factors: the nature of the stopping power and details of the range straggling. The former tends to result in the tail being greater than the head and the latter the reverse.
