DarkSide

The DarkSide collaboration is an international affiliation of universities and labs seeking to directly detect dark matter in the form of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs). The collaboration is planning, building and operating a series of liquid argon time projection chambers (TPCs) that are employed at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Assergi, Italy. The detectors are filled with liquid argon from underground sources[1] in order to exclude the radioactive isotope ³⁹
Ar, which makes up one in every 10¹⁵ (quadrillion) atoms in atmospheric argon.[2] The Darkside-10 (DS-10) prototype was tested in 2012, and the Darkside-50 (DS-50) experiment has been operating since 2013. Darkside-20k (DS-20k) with 20 tonnes of liquid argon is being planned as of 2019.

Darkside-10

The Darkside-10 prototype detector had 10kg of liquid argon. It was built at Princeton University and operated there for seven months, after which it was transported to Gran Sasso National Laboratory in 2011. The detector operated in Gran Sasso 2011-2012.

Status

Darkside-50 has 46 kg argon target mass. A 3-year run is planned and ton-scale expansion has been proposed.

Initial results using a month of running were reported in 2014.[3] Spin-independent limits were set using 1422 kg×days of exposure to atmospheric argon. A cross section limit of 6.1×10⁻⁴⁴ cm² for a 100 Gev WIMP was found.

Members

The following institutions' physics departments include members of DarkSide:

Augustana College, USA
Black Hills State University, USA
Drexel University, USA
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, USA
The University of Chicago, USA
Princeton University, USA
Temple University, USA
University of Arkansas, USA
University of California at Los Angeles, USA
University of California at Davis, USA
University of Houston, USA
University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA
University of Hawaii, USA
Virginia Tech, USA
University College of London, GB
Royal Holloway, University of London, GB
INFN – Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, Italy
INFN – Università degli Studi di Genova, Italy
INFN – Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy
INFN – Università degli Studi di Napoli, Italy
INFN – Università degli Studi di Perugia, Italy
INFN – Università degli Studi di Cagliari, Italy
CERN – The European Organization for Nuclear Research, Switzerland/France
Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland
Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna, Russia
Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia
Novosibirsk State University, Russia
Institute for Nuclear Research of NASU, Kiev, Ukraine
RRC Kurchatov Institute, Russia
National Research Nuclear University, Moscow, Russia
Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics, Moscow, Russia
St. Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute, Gatchina, Russia

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References

Lofholm, Nancy (5 October 2012). "Colorado argon will be at the heart of dark matter experiment". Denver Post.
"Low-background Argon from underground reservoir". DarkSide collaboration. Archived from the original on 2016-07-23.
Agnes, P.; et al. (2015). "First Results from the DarkSide-50 Dark Matter Experiment at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso". Physics Letters B. 743 (456): 456. arXiv:1410.0653. Bibcode:2015PhLB..743..456A. doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2015.03.012.

Publications

Akimov, D.; et al. (2012). "Light Yield in DarkSide-10: A Prototype Two-phase Liquid Argon TPC for Dark Matter Searches". arXiv:1204.6218v1 [astro-ph.IM].
Back, H. O.; et al. (2012). "First Large Scale Production of Low Radioactivity Argon from Underground Sources". arXiv:1204.6024 [astro-ph.IM].
Back, H. O.; et al. (2012). "First Commissioning of a Cryogenic Distillation Column for Low Radioactivity Underground Argon". arXiv:1204.6061v2 [astro-ph.IM].
Xu, J.; et al. (2015). "A study of the trace ³⁹Ar content in argon from deep underground sources". Astroparticle Physics. 66: 53–60. arXiv:1204.6011v1. Bibcode:2015APh....66...53X. doi:10.1016/j.astropartphys.2015.01.002.
Wright, Alex; Mosteiro, Pablo; Loer, Ben; Calaprice, Frank (2011). "A highly efficient neutron veto for dark matter experiments". Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A. 644 (1): 18–26. arXiv:1010.3609. Bibcode:2011NIMPA.644...18W. doi:10.1016/j.nima.2011.04.009.
DarkSide Collaboration, “DarkSide-50 Proposal” (2008).
Galbiati, C.; et al. (2008). "Discovery of underground argon with a low level of radioactive ³⁹Ar and possible applications to WIMP dark matter detectors". Journal of Physics: Conference Series. 120 (4): 042015. arXiv:0712.0381. doi:10.1088/1742-6596/120/4/042015.

External links

Project website

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[1] Lofholm, Nancy (5 October 2012). "Colorado argon will be at the heart of dark matter experiment". Denver Post.

[2] "Low-background Argon from underground reservoir". DarkSide collaboration. Archived from the original on 2016-07-23.

[3] Agnes, P.; et al. (2015). "First Results from the DarkSide-50 Dark Matter Experiment at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso". Physics Letters B. 743 (456): 456. arXiv:1410.0653. Bibcode:2015PhLB..743..456A. doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2015.03.012.