Speaker
Description
Many astrophysical observations indicate that the major part of matter in the universe is dark. The hypothetical Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP), predicted by many BSM theories, is one of the most promising candidates. Liquid Xenon (LXe)-filled dual-phase time projection chambers (TPC) as a dark matter detectors are well established and set the most stringent limits for spin-independent WIMP-nucleon interactions. The DARWIN (DARk matter WIMP search with liquid xenoN) detector will push this limit down to the limit, where ν-induced interactions dominate the background. To build this ultimate detector challenges such as background reduction, LXe purification or scaling the detector have to be faced. Some of these could be overcome in a single-phase TPC, where the proportional light signal from ionization electrons is produced in the strong electric field around thin wires. The majority of my studies is to set up a single phase TPC which makes use of a anode grid consisting of several thin wires. The long term goal is to compare parameters extracted in single-phase mode with those determined operating the TPC as a dual-phase detector. This requires a test platform for liquid xenon detection technologies. The XEBRA (XEnon Based Research Apparatus) detector setup in Freiburg is used for these studies.
