| Seminar Date: | Tuesday, May 6, 2014 |
| Time: | 12:30 PM - 1:30 PM |
| Location: | El Dorado |
| Abstract: | New experiments with high sensitivity are making rapid progress in searches by direct detection for evidence of dark matter WIMPs. Among these new experiments are cryogenic liquid xenon and argon detectors. I will describe the Darkside 50-kg liquid argon detector, and one of the first liquid argon detectors for dark matter searches, now operating in the Gran Sasso Laboratory in Italy. The detector exploits the unique capability of argon to discriminate against beta and gamma background with powerful pulse shape discrimination. The design of the detector incorporates other features that aim to produce “background free” results, including the use of underground argon to avoid 39Ar radioactivity in normal argon, and a combination of large scale liquid scintillator and water shielding that is highly effective for suppressing radiogenic and cosmogenic backgrounds. The scintillator-water shielding for the Darkside-50 detector was designed with ports to accommodate other detectors. I will also discuss plans to use this feature of Darkside to test and house the SABRE experiment, an array of low-background NaI(Tl) scintillation detectors designed to check the DAMA/LIBRA evidence for dark |
| Speaker: | Frank Calaprice - Princeton University
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