Descrizione del progetto
Migliorare la sensibilità di rilevazione della materia oscura
Due importanti collaborazioni impegnate nello studio della materia oscura, XENON/DARWIN e LUX-ZEPLIN (rivelatori di xenon liquido), uniscono le forze per creare un rivelatore di materia oscura di nuova generazione. Questo strumento sarà sensibile anche ad altri processi di fisica rara, come i doppi decadimenti beta senza neutrini, i neutrini solari, gli assioni e altri ancora. Nonostante l’esistenza di sistemi di schermatura per muoni o neutroni, la sensibilità di entrambi i rivelatori è limitata dai decadimenti radioattivi nello xenon, in particolare degli isotopi radioattivi dei gas nobili 222Rn e 85Kr. Il progetto LowRad, finanziato dall’UE, prevede la creazione di impianti di distillazione criogenica per ridurre le concentrazioni di 222Rn e 85Kr a livelli mai raggiunti prima, che dovrebbero contribuire a ridurre di dieci volte il contributo di fondo di questi elementi.
Obiettivo
The astrophysical and cosmological evidence that the majority of matter in the universe must consist of exotic dark matter is overwhelming. But it is not yet clear what dark matter really is. Very promising candidates are WIMPs, the detection of which would also solve other pressing questions in particle physics. For the search for WIMPs, liquid xenon-based detectors are by far the most sensitive. The collaborations LZ, XENON and DARWIN joined to build a next generation detector, DARWIN/G3, with a sensitivity limited only by coherent neutrino scattering. Such a detector will not only search for dark matter, but will become an observatory for rare event searches (axions, solar neutrinos, neutrinoless double beta decay, ..).
Despite construction in underground laboratories and with further shielding or veto systems for muons or neutrons, the sensitivity of these detectors is limited by radioactive decays within the xenon, especially of the radioactive noble gas isotopes 222Rn and 85Kr, dominating the background of current xenon-based dark matter experiments. In this project we want to push the possibilities of cryogenic distillation to continuously reduce 222Rn and 85Kr to an unprecedented level of 1 atom per 100 mol of xenon (10 mol in case of 85Kr), which will make their background contributions at DARWIN/G3 to be a factor 10 smaller than that of the un-shieldable solar neutrinos. Our cryogenic distillation setups which obtain their cooling power from a novel heat pump concept offers the additional benefit of determining the impurity concentrations in-situ. We will integrate the novel distillation systems with the removal of electronegative impurities and their diagnostics into a compact cleaning system. Within LowRAD we aim to provide a complete quasi loss-less continuous 85Kr removal system ready for DARWIN/G3. In addition, we will explore how several important physics channels would become possible due to the extremely low 222Rn and 85Kr concentrations.
Campo scientifico
- natural scienceschemical sciencesinorganic chemistrynoble gases
- natural sciencesphysical sciencestheoretical physicsparticle physicsneutrinos
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesastronomyastrophysicsdark matter
- engineering and technologychemical engineeringseparation technologiesdistillation
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesnuclear physicsnuclear decay
Parole chiave
Programma(i)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsIstituzione ospitante
48149 MUENSTER
Germania