The Darkside - 50 Experiment: Election Recoil Calibrations and a Global Energy Variable.
Date
2017-12
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Over the course of decades, there has been mounting astronomical evidence for non-baryonic dark
matter, yet its precise nature remains elusive. A favored candidate for dark matter is the Weakly
Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) which arises naturally out of extensions to the Standard
Model. WIMPs are expected to occasionally interact with particles of normal matter through
nuclear recoils. DarkSide-50 aims to detect this type of particle through the use of a two-phase
liquid argon time projection chamber. To make a claim of discovery, an accurate understanding
of the background and WIMP search region is imperative. Knowledge of the backgrounds is done
through extensive studies of DarkSide-50's response to electron and nuclear recoils.
The CALibration Insertion System (CALIS) was designed and built for the purpose of introduc-
ing radioactive sources into or near the detector in a joint e ort between Fermi National Laboratory
(FNAL) and the University of Hawai'i at M anoa. This work describes the testing, installation, and
commissioning of CALIS at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso. CALIS has been used in mul-
tiple calibration campaigns with both neutron and
sources. In this work, DarkSide-50's response
to electron recoils, which are important for background estimations, was studied through the use
of
calibration sources by constructing a global energy variable which takes into account the anti-
correlation between scintillation and ionization signals produced by interactions in the liquid argon.
Accurately reconstructing the event energy correlates directly with quantitatively understanding
the WIMP sensitivity in DarkSide-50.
This work also validates the theoretically predicted decay spectrum of 39Ar against 39Ar
decay data collected in the early days of DarkSide-50 while it was lled with atmospheric argon;
a validation of this type is not readily found in the literature. Finally, we show how well the
constructed energy variable can predict energy spectra for the calibration sources and for 39Ar.
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dissertations, dark matter, DarkSide-50, calibrations, energy variable
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