Refrigerated hydrogen gas jet for the Fermilab antiproton accumulator

A hydrogen gas jet has been built for use at Fermilab for the study of charmonium spectroscopy in proton-antiproton annihilations. The hydrogen gas jet is part of an upgrade to a previous experiment which ran in the Fermilab 1990-1991 fixed target program utilizing a jet cooled to 80 K with liquid nitrogen. The jet delivers a defined stream of hydrogen gas which travels through a series of vacuum chambers and then intersects the circulating antiproton beam. The goal of the upgrade is to provide a hydrogen gas stream at least twice as dense as used for the earlier experiment to increase the interaction rate and allow an improved study of rare processes. This is achieved by cooling the stream to below 30 K using a Gifford-McMahon refrigerator. The jet apparatus is designed to allow motion in the plane perpendicular to the gas stream as well as angular positioning at the jet nozzle to provide a means of optimizing the interaction rate. Two skimmers located in the vacuum chambers are used to define the gas stream dimensions. The jet target vacuum chambers require constant pumping with turbomolecular pumps. The vacuum space around the jet is designed to have a large system pumping speed so that the chamber pressure can be maintained below an absolute pressure of 1 Pa. The jet will operate in the next fixed target run at Fermilab. Details of the design and test results are discussed

Study of cosmogenic activation above ground for the DarkSide-20k experiment

The activation of materials due to exposure to cosmic rays may become an important background source for experiments investigating rare event phenomena. DarkSide-20k, currently under construction at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, is a direct detection experiment for galactic dark matter particles, using a two-phase liquid-argon Time Projection Chamber (TPC) filled with 49.7 tonnes (active mass) of Underground Argon (UAr) depleted in 39Ar. Despite the outstanding capability of discriminating / background in argon TPCs, this background must be considered because of induced dead time or accidental coincidences mimicking dark-matter signals and it is relevant for low-threshold electron-counting measurements. Here, the cosmogenic activity of relevant long-lived radioisotopes induced in the experiment has been estimated to set requirements and procedures during preparation of the experiment and to check that it is not dominant over primordial radioactivity; particular attention has been paid to the activation of the 120 t of UAr used in DarkSide-20k. Expected exposures above ground and production rates, either measured or calculated, have been considered in detail. From the simulated counting rates in the detector due to cosmogenic isotopes, it is concluded that activation in copper and stainless steel is not problematic. The activity of 39Ar induced during extraction, purification and transport on surface is evaluated to be 2.8% of the activity measured in UAr by DarkSide-50 experiment, which used the same underground source, and thus considered acceptable. Other isotopes in the UAr such as 37Ar and 3H are shown not to be relevant due to short half-life and assumed purification methods

Latest results of dark matter detection with the DarkSide experiment

In this contribution the latest results of dark matter direct detection obtained by the DarkSide Collaboration are discussed. New limits on the scattering cross-section between dark matter particles and baryonic matter have been set. The results have been reached using the DarkSide-50 detector, a double-phase Time Projection Chamber (TPC) filled with 40Ar and installed at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS). In 2018, the DarkSide Collaboration has performed three different types of analysis. The so-called high-mass analysis into the range between ∼ 10 GeV and ∼ 1000 GeV is discussed under the hypothesis of scattering between dark matter and Ar nuclei. The low-mass analysis, performed using the same hypothesis, extends the limit down to ∼1.8 GeV. Through a different hypothesis, that predicts dark matter scattering off the electrons inside of the Ar atom, it has been possible to set limits for sub-GeV dark matter masses

The DarkSide program at LNGS

(The DarkSide Collaboration) The DarkSide program at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso aims to perform background-free WIMP searches using double phase liquid argon time projection chambers, with the ultimate goal of covering all parameters down to the so-called neutrino floor. One of the distinct features of the program is the use of underground argon with has a reduced content of the $radioactive^{39}$ Ar compared to atmospheric argon. The DarkSide Collaboration is currently operating the DarkSide-50 experiment, the first such WIMP detector using underground argon, resulting in the best WIMP limits obtained with argon. The results obtained with DarkSide-50 and the plans for the next steps of the DarkSide program, the 20 t fiducial mass DarkSide-20k detector and the 200 t fiducial Argo, are reviewed in this proceedings

Long-term temporal stability of the DarkSide-50 dark matter detector

International audienceThe stability of a dark matter detector on the timescale of a few years is a key requirement due to the large exposure needed to achieve a competitive sensitivity. It is especially crucial to enable the detector to potentially detect any annual event rate modulation, an expected dark matter signature. In this work, we present the performance history of the DarkSide-50 dual-phase argon time projection chamber over its almost three-year low-radioactivity argon run. In particular, we focus on the electroluminescence signal that enables sensitivity to sub-keV energy depositions. The stability of the electroluminescence yield is found to be better than 0.5%. Finally, we show the temporal evolution of the observed event rate around the sub-keV region being consistent to the background prediction

Search for low-mass dark matter WIMPs with 12 ton-day exposure of DarkSide-50

International audienceWe report on the search for dark matter WIMPs in the mass range below 10 GeV/c$^2$, from the analysis of the entire dataset acquired with a low-radioactivity argon target by the DarkSide-50 experiment at LNGS. The new analysis benefits from more accurate calibration of the detector response, improved background model, and better determination of systematic uncertainties, allowing us to accurately model the background rate and spectra down to 0.06 keV$_{er}$. A 90% C.L. exclusion limit for the spin-independent cross section of 3 GeV/c$^2$ mass WIMP on nucleons is set at 6$\times$10$^{-43}$ cm$^2$, about a factor 10 better than the previous DarkSide-50 limit. This analysis extends the exclusion region for spin-independent dark matter interactions below the current experimental constraints in the $[1.2, 3.6]$ GeV/c$^2$ WIMP mass range