New ideas on the detection of cold dark matter and magnetic monopoles

Superheated superconducting granules (SSG) provide several interesting targets for cold dark matter detection, not only through coherent scattering off nuclei, but also for Majorana fermions through spin-spin interactions. The concept of 'localized micro-avalanche' should introduce crucial improvements in SSG devices and, eventually, make feasible a cold dark matter detector based on nucleus recoil. Recent results on the metastability of very large granules also suggest that a SSG large area monopole detector may be feasible, if the theoretically conjectured detection principle (destruction of the superheated state by two injected flux quanta) is checked experimentally. We also consider the use of special crystal scintillators to detect Majorana fermions through inelastic scattering