2 research outputs found
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