DEAP

DEAP (Dark matter Experiment using Argon Pulse-shape discrimination) is a direct dark matter search experiment which uses liquid argon as a target material. DEAP utilizes background discrimination based on the characteristic scintillation pulse-shape of argon. A first-generation detector (DEAP-1) with a 7 kg target mass was operated at Queen's University to test the performance of pulse-shape discrimination at low recoil energies in liquid argon. DEAP-1 was then moved to SNOLAB, 2 km below Earth's surface, in October 2007 and collected data into 2011. DEAP (Dark matter Experiment using Argon Pulse-shape discrimination) is a direct dark matter search experiment which uses liquid argon as a target material. DEAP utilizes background discrimination based on the characteristic scintillation pulse-shape of argon. A first-generation detector (DEAP-1) with a 7 kg target mass was operated at Queen's University to test the performance of pulse-shape discrimination at low recoil energies in liquid argon. DEAP-1 was then moved to SNOLAB, 2 km below Earth's surface, in October 2007 and collected data into 2011. DEAP-3600 was designed with 3600 kg of active liquid argon mass to achieve sensitivity to WIMP-nucleon scattering cross-sections as low as 10−46 cm2 for a dark matter particle mass of 100 GeV/c2. The DEAP-3600 detector finished construction and began data collection in 2016. An incident with the detector forced a short pause in the data collection in 2016. As of 2019, the experiment is collecting data. To reach even better sensitivity to dark matter, the Global Argon Dark Matter Collaboration was formed with scientists from DEAP, DarkSide, CLEAN and ArDM experiments. A detector with a liquid argon mass above 20 tonnes (DarkSide-20k) is planned for operation at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso. Research and development efforts are working towards a next generation detector (ARGO) with a multi-hundred tonne liquid argon target mass designed to reach the neutrino floor, planned to operate at SNOLAB due to its extremely low-background radiation environment. Since liquid argon is a scintillating material a particle interacting with it produces light in proportion to the energy deposited from the incident particle, this is a linear effect for low energies before quenching becomes a major contributing factor. The interaction of a particle with the argon causes ionization and recoiling along the path of interaction. The recoiling argon nuclei undergo recombination or self-trapping, ultimately resulting in the emission of 128nm vacuum ultra-violet(VUV) photons. Additionally liquid argon has the unique property of being transparent to its own scintillation light, this allows for light yields of 10's of thousands of photons produced for every MeV of energy deposited.