Prototyping Liquid Argon Dark Matter Detector (Phase 2)
The prototype ion chamber which Pierre Gratia (2008-9 Phys335 project) worked on is row running. It was tested in two different
high
voltage configurations, with argon gas pressures up to 8 bar and achieved very good performance. The next step is to build a higher
pressure chamber with the capability to count up to 1/2 kg of argon. The higher pressure chamber will be built with low-radioactivity
materials and shielded to allow it to directly see the activity of 39Ar in gas samples from underground sources. We expect to assemble
this chamber over the summer/fall and begin testing it. Princeton group will be extracting new gas samples from several promising sites
and this chamber will work with these samples. A student would be able to participate in the construction of the detector, optimization
of shielding to reduce backgrounds and the exploration of analysis strategies to obtain the best possible sensitivity.
Supervisors: Young-Kee Kim, Andrew Sonnenschein(Fermilab Wilson Fellow)