New results are reported from the operation of the PICO-60 dark matter detector, a bubble chamber filled with 52 kg of C_{3}F_{8} located in the SNOLAB underground laboratory. As in previous PICO bubble chambers, PICO-60 C_{3}F_{8} exhibits excellent electron recoil and alpha decay rejection, and the observed multiple-scattering neutron rate indicates a single-scatter neutron background of less than one event per month. A blind analysis of an efficiency-corrected 1167-kg day exposure at a 3.3-keV thermodynamic threshold reveals no single-scattering nuclear recoil candidates, consistent with the predicted background. These results set the most stringent direct-detection constraint to date on the weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP)-proton spin-dependent cross section at 3.4×10^{-41}  cm^{2} for a 30-GeV c^{-2} WIMP, more than 1 order of magnitude improvement from previous PICO results.

Final results are reported from operation of the PICO-60 C3F8 dark matter detector, a bubble chamber filled with 52 kg of C3F8 located in the SNOLAB underground laboratory. The chamber was operated at thermodynamic thresholds as low as 1.2 keV without loss of stability. A new blind 1404-kg-day exposure at 2.45 keV threshold was acquired with approximately the same expected total background rate as the previous 1167-kg-day exposure at 3.3 keV. This increased exposure is enabled in part by a new optical tracking analysis to better identify events near detector walls, permitting a larger fiducial volume. These results set the most stringent direct-detection constraint to date on the WIMP-proton spin-dependent cross section at 2.5 × 10 −41 cm 2 for a 25 GeV WIMP, and improve on previous PICO results for 3-5 GeV WIMPs by an order of magnitude.

Abstract. The spectrum of herbicide resistance was determined in an annual ryegrass (Lolium rigidum Gaud.) biotype (SLR 3) that had been exposed to the grass herbicide sethoxydim, an inhibitor of the plastidic enzyme acetylcoenzyme A carboxylase (ACCase, EC 6.4.1.2), for three consecutive years. This biotype has an 18-fold resistance to sethoxydim and enhanced resistance to other cyclohexanedione herbicides compared with a susceptible biotype (VLR 1). The resistant biotype also has a 47-to > 300-fold cross-resistance to the aryloxyphenoxypropanoate herbicides which share ACCase as a target site. No resistance is evident to herbicide with a target site different from ACCase. The absorption of [4-14C]sethoxydim, the rate of metabolic degradation and the nature of the herbicide metabolites are similar in the resistant and susceptible biotypes. While the total activity of the herbicide target enzyme ACCase is similar in extracts from the two biotypes, the kinetics of herbicide inhibition differ. The concentrations of sethoxydim and tralkoxydim required to inhibit the activity of ACCase by 50% are 7.8 and > 9.5 times higher, respectively, in the resistant biotype. The activity of ACCase from the resistant biotype was also less sensitive to aryloxyphenoxypropanode herbicides than the susceptible biotype. The spectrum of resistance at the whole-plant level is correlated with resistance at the ACCase level and confirms that a less sensitive form of the target enzyme endows resistance in biotype SLR 3.

The mechanism and mode of inheritance of resistance to acetyl-coenzyme A carboxylase (ACCase)-inhibiting herbicides was investigated in a biotype of Lolium rigidum that has evolved resistance following selection with diclofop-methyl for 10 consecutive years. ACCase extracted from the resistant biotype is > 6.9 times more resistant to inhibition by diclofop than enzyme from a susceptible biotype. Similar or greater levels of resistance were found to other related herbicides. There is no difference in absorption or metabolism of diclofop-methyl or haloxyfop-methyl between the resistant and susceptible biotypes, hence differential absorption or metabolism of these herbicides does not contribute to resistance. F1 families from reciprocal crosses between the resistant biotype and a susceptible biotype respond similarly to the herbicide and are nearly as resistant as the resistant parent, indicating that the resistance trait is nuclearly located and has incomplete dominance over susceptibility. F2 families treated with 26 and 208 g ai ha-1 of haloxyfop-ethoxyethyl reveal only two phenotypes: resistant plants showing no injury and susceptible plants showing no growth. At both rates of haloxyfop-ethoxyethyl, the segregation of resistance to susceptibility follows a ratio of 3:1 (R:S) that fits the predicted ratio for a single nuclear gene with high dominance. From the F1 and F2 data, it is concluded that resistance to haloxyfop in this resistant biotype of L. rigidum is inherited as a single nuclear incompletely dominant gene coding for a resistant form of the target enzyme ACCase.

The primary advantage of moderately superheated bubble chamber detectors is their simultaneous sensitivity to nuclear recoils from WIMP dark matter and insensitivity to electron recoil backgrounds. A comprehensive analysis of PICO gamma calibration data demonstrates for the first time that electron recoils in C3F8 scale in accordance with a new nucleation mechanism, rather than one driven by a hot-spike as previously supposed. Using this semi-empirical model, bubble chamber nucleation thresholds may be tuned to be sensitive to lower energy nuclear recoils while maintaining excellent electron recoil rejection. The PICO-40L detector will exploit this model to achieve thermodynamic thresholds as low as 2.8 keV while being dominated by single-scatter events from coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering of solar neutrinos. In one year of operation, PICO-40L can improve existing leading limits from PICO on spin-dependent WIMP-proton coupling by nearly an order of magnitude for WIMP masses greater than 3 GeV c −2 and will have the ability to surpass all existing non-xenon bounds on spin-independent WIMP-nucleon coupling for WIMP masses from 3 to 40 GeV c −2 .