"SPECIAL PARTICLE SEMINAR: WIMP Dark Matter Detection with DarkSide-50"

More than eighty percent of the mass of the Universe is dark matter, but detecting dark matter directly is challenging as it is expected to interact extremely rarely. A rare signal requires excellent background rejection. DarkSide-50 is a WIMP dark matter detector that uses a liquid argon time projection chamber design that rejects background efficiently using pulse shape discrimination, liquid scintillator and water veto enclosures, and accurate position reconstruction.

 

Position reconstruction of events allows for the rejection of surface backgrounds and multiple scatter events. The time projection chamber provides a timing signal that precisely identifies the position on the vertical axis. My work involves using the highly localized secondary signal of the TPC to identify event position on the horizontal axes.