The Electronics and Data Acquisition System of the DarkSide Dark Matter Search

It is generally inferred from astronomical measurements that Dark Matter (DM) comprises approximately 27\% of the energy-density of the universe. If DM is a subatomic particle, a possible candidate is a Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP), and the DarkSide-50 (DS) experiment is a direct search for evidence of WIMP-nuclear collisions. DS is located underground at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) in Italy, and consists of three active, embedded components; an outer water veto (CTF), a liquid scintillator veto (LSV), and a liquid argon (LAr) time projection chamber (TPC). This paper describes the data acquisition and electronic systems of the DS detectors, designed to detect the residual ionization from such collisions

DarkSide-50, a background free experiment for dark matter searches

The existence of dark matter is inferred from gravitational effects, but its nature remains a deep mystery. One possibility, motivated by considerations in elementary particle physics, is that dark matter consists of elementary particles, such as the hypothesized Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), with mass ~ 100 GeV and cross-section ~ 10−47 cm2, that can be gravitationally trapped inside our galaxy and revealed by their scattering on nuclei. It should be possible to detect WIMPs directly, as the orbital motion of the WIMPs composing the dark matter halo pervading the galaxy should result in WIMP-nucleus collisions of sufficient energy to be observable in the laboratory. The DarkSide-50 experiment is a direct WIMP search using a Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LAr-TPC) with an active mass of 50 kg with a high sensitivity and an ultra-low background detector

First Results from the DarkSide-50 Dark Matter Experiment at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso

We report the first results of DarkSide-50, a direct search for dark matter operating in the un- derground Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) and searching for the rare nuclear recoils possibly induced by weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs). The dark matter detector is a Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber with a ( 46.4 0.7 ) kg active mass, operated inside a 30 t or- ganic liquid scintillator neutron veto, which is in turn installed at the center of a 1 kt water Cherenkov veto for the residual flux of cosmic rays. We report here the null results of a dark matter search for a ( 1422 67 ) kg d exposure with an atmospheric argon fill. This is the most sensitive dark matter search performed with an argon target, corresponding to a 90% CL upper limit on the WIMP-nucleon spin-independent cross section of 6.1 1

The Electronics and Data Acquisition System of the DarkSide Dark Matter Search

It is generally inferred from astronomical measurements th at Dark Matter (DM) comprises approximately 27% of the energy-dens ity of the universe. If DM is a subatomic particle, a possible candidate is a Weakl y Interacting Mas- sive Particle (WIMP), and the DarkSide-50 (DS) experiment i s a direct search for evidence of WIMP-nuclear collisions. DS is located undergr ound at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) in Italy, and consists of thr ee active, embedded components; an outer water veto (CTF), a liquid scintillato r veto (LSV), and a liquid argon (LAr) time projection chamber (TPC). This pap er describes the data acquisition and electronic systems of the DS detectors , designed to detect the residual ionization from

B flavour tagging using charm decays at the LHCb experiment

An algorithm is described for tagging the flavour content at production of neutral B mesons in the LHCb experiment. The algorithm exploits the correlation of the flavour of a B meson with the charge of a reconstructed secondary charm hadron from the decay of the other b hadron produced in the proton-proton collision. Charm hadron candidates are identified in a number of fully or partially reconstructed Cabibbo-favoured decay modes. The algorithm is calibrated on the self-tagged decay modes B+ -> J/psi K+ and B-0 -> J/psi K*(0) using 3.0fb(-1) of data collected by the LHCb experiment at pp centre-of-mass energies of 7TeV and 8TeV. Its tagging power on these samples of B -> J/psi X decays is (0.30 +/- 0.01 +/- 0.01) %

Precision luminosity measurements at LHCb

Measuring cross-sections at the LHC requires the luminosity to be determined accurately at each centre-of-mass energy root s. In this paper results are reported from the luminosity calibrations carried out at the LHC interaction point 8 with the LHCb detector for root s = 2.76, 7 and 8TeV (proton-proton collisions) and for root s(NN) = 5TeV (proton-lead collisions). Both the "van der Meer scan" and "beam-gas imaging" luminosity calibration methods were employed. It is observed that the beam density profile cannot always be described by a function that is factorizable in the two transverse coordinates. The introduction of a two-dimensional description of the beams improves significantly the consistency of the results. For proton-proton interactions at root s = 8TeV a relative precision of the luminosity calibration of 1.47% is obtained using van der Meer scans and 1.43% using beam-gas imaging, resulting in a combined precision of 1.12%. Applying the calibration to the full data set determines the luminosity with a precision of 1.16%. This represents the most precise luminosity measurement achieved so far at a bunched-beam hadron collider