Speaker
Description
The DarkSide-20k (DS-20k) experiment is a 20-ton active argon detector which plans to operate radio-pure underground argon (UAr) for dark matter direct searches. A major worldwide effort is on-going in order to procure the radio-pure argon required for this experiment. The Urania project will extract and purify the UAr from the CO2 wells at the Kinder Morgan Doe Canyon Facility located in Cortez (USA) at a production rate of ~100 kg/day. It will be necessary to make a chemical and radiological purification of the UAr before deployment into the LAr TPC of DS-20k. The Aria project will serve to purify the UAr using a cryogenic distillation column, called Seruci-I, located in Sardinia (Italy). The ultimate goal of Aria is to implement an upgraded column, Seruci-II, able to process about 150 kg/day of argon and to achieve an additional 39Ar depletion factor between 10 and 100. Assessing the purity of UAr in terms of 39Ar is key for the physics program of DS-20k. DART is a small (∼1 liter) chamber that will measure the depletion factor of 39Ar in UAr. The detector will be immersed in the LAr active volume of ArDM (LSC, Spain), which will act as a veto for gammas stemming from the detector materials and from the surrounding rock. Data taking is planned for 2019. In this talk, I will review the status and prospects of the UAr projects for DarkSide20K.
