Speaker
Ed Hungerford
(University of Houston)
Description
Ed V. Hungerford for the DarkSide 20k Collaboration
DarkSide-20k having a fiducial mass of 20 t, is a direct dark matter search using a 2-phase liquid argon time projection chamber. It will be surrounded by active liquid-scintillator and water-Cherenkov vetoes. Like its processor DS-50 which has demonstrated extraordinary background discrimination, DS-20k is designed for ultra-low background with careful screening and handling of all detector components. In particular, DS-20k uses 20 t of underground argon (UAr), which is essentially depleted of 39Ar, and may employ an ultrapure Ti cryostat. The argon scintillation light is detected by SiMP arrays specially designed for cryogenic operation and high quantum efficiency. DS-20k will be housed at the Gran Sasso (LNGS) underground laboratory, where it is expected to attain a WIMP-nucleon cross section of 10-47 cm2 for a WIMP mass of 1TeV/c2 in a 5 yr run. This result provides a background-free exposure of 100 t-yr, which is a factor of 103 better than currently published results for spin-independent cross sections for 1TeV WIMPs. DS-20k will lay the groundwork for Argo, a 200 t-fiducial mass UAr experiment designed to explore in a background-free mode, the parameter space available for dark matter down to the “neutrino floor”. Finally, DS-20k allows precision low-energy solar neutrino measurements.
Primary author
Ed Hungerford
(University of Houston)
