The SABRE South Experiment at the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory

TL;DR

The SABRE South experiment at SUPL Australia aims to independently verify the DAMA/LIBRA dark matter signal by using ultra-high purity NaI(Tl) detectors with advanced background mitigation at a new underground site.

Contribution

This paper presents the design, assembly status, and expected performance of SABRE South, a novel experiment to test dark matter signals with improved background control.

Findings

SABRE South is under construction at SUPL Australia.

The detector system includes liquid scintillator veto and passive shielding.

First subsystems are installed, with full completion expected in 2025.

Abstract

SABRE aims to provide a test of the signal observed by DAMA/LIBRA through two separate detectors that rely on joint ultra-high NaI(Tl) purity crystal R&D activities: SABRE South at SUPL Australia and SABRE North at LNGS Italy. SABRE South is designed to disentangle seasonal and site-related effects from the dark matter-like modulated signal. Ultra-high purity crystals are immersed in a liquid scintillator veto, further surrounded by passive shielding and a plastic scintillator muon veto. Significant work has been undertaken to assess and mitigate background from the detector materials, and to understand the performance of both the crystal and veto systems. SUPL is a newly built facility located 1024 m underground in Australia. SABRE South is currently being assembled and will be completed in 2025, with first subsystems already installed in SUPL. This proceedings will report on the general status of the SABRE South assembly, its expected performance, and the design of SUPL.