Speaker
Description
Darkside-20k, an underground dark matter search experiment located at
LNGS (Italy), aims to achieve a total exposure of 200 tonne-years
devoid of instrumental backgrounds. At its core is a dual-phase Time
Projection Chamber (TPC) containing 50 tonnes of low-radioactivity
liquid argon. Surrounding the entire TPC wall is a gadolinium-loaded
acrylic material, serving as a neutron veto. This material is immersed
in a second low-radioactivity liquid argon bath, enclosed within a
stainless steel vessel. The entire detector is housed in a cryostat
similar to protoDUNE, which is filled with 600 tons of Atmospheric
Argon. Both the TPC and neutron veto feature large-area Silicon
Photomultiplier (SiPM) array detectors.
Construction of Darkside-20k has commenced, with data-taking scheduled
to start in 2026. The presentation will outline the current progress
of Darkside-20k's development and construction, as well as discuss the
future plans for liquid argon dark matter experiments, including
DarkSide-LowMass.
Additionally, the presentation will provide an overview of recently
published findings from the predecessor experiment, DarkSide-50.
Specifically, it will focus on the search for low-mass dark matter and
the analysis of dark matter annual modulation.
