Münster 2011 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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HK: Fachverband Physik der Hadronen und Kerne
HK 6: Astroteilchenphysik I
HK 6.3: Vortrag
Montag, 21. März 2011, 14:30–14:45, A-1
Building a Ton Scale Dark Matter Detector: XENON1T — •Ethan Brown — Institut für Kernphysik, Universität Münster, Germany
The search for dark matter, which would compose up to 25% of the universe, is one of the most active fields in astroparticle physics today. One of the most seducing theories that includes dark matter, supersymmetry, predicts that it is made of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs). The XENON program is a phased direct dark matter search experiment using liquid xenon to detect WIMPs by looking at the ionization and scintillation signals from the recoil of a WIMP on the target. While the current stage, XENON100, is still taking data, the next phase, which consists of a 1 ton target is under development. By increasing the target size by an order of magnitude and reducing the radioactive background, XENON1T should be able to achieve a sensitivity sufficient to probe the WIMP-nucleon cross section to the level of a few 10−47 cm2. The key design features of XENON1T will be discussed, namely as they apply to the background reduction and the implementation of such a large scale liquid noble detector. The development of a new low radioactivity photosensor and selection of radiopure detector materials, combined with the self shielding property of xenon allow the background from internal sources to be adequately reduced. Additionally, the construction of a water shield for use as an active veto will reduce the backgrounds from the radioactivities in the laboratory and muon induced neutrons.