Speaker
Description
DarkSide run since mid 2015 a 50-kg-active-mass dual phase Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (TPC), filled with low radioactivity argon from an underground source and produced world class results for both the low mass (𝑀<20 𝐺𝑒𝑉/c2) and high mass (𝑀>100 𝐺𝑒𝑉/𝑐2) direct detection search for dark matter.
The next stage of the DarkSide program will be a new generation experiment involving a global collaboration from all the current Argon based experiments. DarkSide-20k, is designed as a 20-tonne fiducial mass dual phase Liquid Argon TPC with SiPM based cryogenic photosensors, and is expected to be free of any instrumental background for an exposure of >100 tonne x year. Like its predecessor, DarkSide-20k will be housed at the INFN Gran Sasso (LNGS) underground laboratory, and it is expected to attain a WIMP-nucleon cross section exclusion sensitivity of 7.4×10−48 cm2 for a WIMP mass of 1𝑇𝑒𝑉/𝑐2 in a 200 t yr run. DarkSide-20k will be installed inside a membrane cryostat containing more than 700 t of liquid Argon and be surrounded by an active neutron veto based on a Gd-loaded acrylic shell. The talk will give the latest updates about the ongoing prototype tests validating the design, the progress of construction and the future plans.
