Skip to main content
OSTI.GOVU.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
 

Design and construction of a new detector to measure ultra-low radioactive-isotope contamination of argon

Journal Article · · Journal of Instrumentation
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; more »; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; « less
Large liquid argon detectors offer one of the best avenues for the detection of galactic weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) via their scattering on atomic nuclei. The liquid argon target allows exquisite discrimination between nuclear and electron recoil signals via pulse-shape discrimination of the scintillation signals. Atmospheric argon (AAr), however, has a naturally occurring radioactive isotope, 39Ar, a β emitter of cosmogenic origin. For large detectors, the atmospheric 39Ar activity poses pile-up concerns. The use of argon extracted from underground wells, deprived of 39Ar, is key to the physics potential of these experiments. The DarkSide-20k dark matter search experiment will operate a dual-phase time projection chamber with 50 tonnes of radio-pure underground argon (UAr), that was shown to be depleted of 39Ar with respect to AAr by a factor larger than 1400. Assessing the 39Ar content of the UAr during extraction is crucial for the success of DarkSide-20k, as well as for future experiments of the Global Argon Dark Matter Collaboration (GADMC). This will be carried out by the DArT in ArDM experiment, a small chamber made with extremely radio-pure materials that will be placed at the centre of the ArDM detector, in the Canfranc Underground Laboratory (LSC) in Spain. The ArDM LAr volume acts as an active veto for background radioactivity, mostly γ-rays from the ArDM detector materials and the surrounding rock. This article describes the DArT in ArDM project, including the chamber design and construction, and reviews the background required to achieve the expected performance of the detector.
Research Organization:
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States); Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States); Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
Contributing Organization:
The DarkSide-20k Collaboration
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-07CH11359; AC05-76RL01830
OSTI ID:
1596043
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1675370
Report Number(s):
FERMILAB-PUB--20-023-PPD; arXiv:2001.08106; oai:inspirehep.net:1777035
Journal Information:
Journal of Instrumentation, Journal Name: Journal of Instrumentation Journal Issue: 02 Vol. 15; ISSN 1748-0221
Publisher:
Institute of Physics (IOP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (16)

A model of nuclear recoil scintillation efficiency in noble liquids journal August 2008
Radon backgrounds in the DEAP-1 liquid-argon-based Dark Matter detector journal March 2015
Low-temperature relative reflectivity measurements of reflective and scintillating foils used in rare event searches
  • Langenkämper, A.; Ulrich, A.; Defay, X.
  • Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 884 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2017.11.054
journal March 2018
First results from the DarkSide-50 dark matter experiment at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso journal April 2015
ArDM: a ton-scale LAr detector for direct Dark Matter searches journal July 2011
Simulation of argon response and light detection in the DarkSide-50 dual phase TPC journal October 2017
Calibration of liquid argon and neon detectors with Kr 83 m journal April 2010
Results from the first use of low radioactivity argon in a dark matter search journal April 2016
DarkSide-50 532-day dark matter search with low-radioactivity argon journal November 2018
First Results from the DEAP-3600 Dark Matter Search with Argon at SNOLAB journal August 2018
Low-Mass Dark Matter Search with the DarkSide-50 Experiment journal August 2018
Constraints on Sub-GeV Dark-Matter–Electron Scattering from the DarkSide-50 Experiment journal September 2018
Cryogenic Characterization of FBK HD Near-UV Sensitive SiPMs journal February 2017
Geant4 developments and applications journal February 2006
Development of a Very Low-Noise Cryogenic Preamplifier for Large-Area SiPM Devices journal April 2018
DarkSide-20k: A 20 tonne two-phase LAr TPC for direct dark matter detection at LNGS journal March 2018

Similar Records

Design and construction of a new detector to measure ultra-low radioactive-isotope contamination of argon
Journal Article · Tue Feb 25 23:00:00 EST 2020 · Journal of Instrumentation · OSTI ID:1675370
Low-Radioactivity Argon for Rare-Event Searches
Conference · Tue Sep 05 00:00:00 EDT 2023 · OSTI ID:2332932
Commissioning of the ArDM experiment at the Canfranc underground laboratory: first steps towards a tonne-scale liquid argon time projection chamber for Dark Matter searches
Journal Article · Tue Feb 28 23:00:00 EST 2017 · Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics · OSTI ID:22680003

Related Subjects

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY