DEAP-3600 Dark Matter Search

TL;DR

The DEAP-3600 experiment is a large underground liquid argon detector designed to search for dark matter particles, aiming to improve sensitivity to WIMP interactions by an order of magnitude over current experiments.

Contribution

This paper introduces the DEAP-3600 detector, its design, current status, and future plans, including a larger DEAP-50T detector for enhanced dark matter searches.

Findings

DEAP-3600 achieved high pulse-shape discrimination for background reduction.

Construction of DEAP-3600 is nearly complete with commissioning starting in 2014.

Projected sensitivity to WIMP-nucleon interactions is 10$^{-46}$ cm$^2$, improving current limits.

Abstract

The DEAP-3600 experiment is located 2 km underground at SNOLAB, in Sudbury, Ontario. It is a single-phase detector that searches for dark matter particle interactions within a 1000-kg fiducial mass target of liquid argon. A first generation prototype detector (DEAP-1) with a 7-kg liquid argon target mass demonstrated a high level of pulse-shape discrimination (PSD) for reducing $\beta$/$\gamma$ backgrounds and helped to develop low radioactivity techniques to mitigate surface-related $\alpha$ backgrounds. Construction of the DEAP-3600 detector is nearly complete and commissioning is starting in 2014. The target sensitivity to spin-independent scattering of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) on nucleons of 10$^{-46}$ cm$^2$ will allow one order of magnitude improvement in sensitivity over current searches at 100 GeV WIMP mass. This paper presents an overview and status of the DEAP-3600 project and discusses plans for a future multi-tonne experiment, DEAP-50T.