21st Patras Workshop on Axions, WIMPs and WISPs

SABRE South at SUPL Status and Physics Prospects

Not scheduled

20m

University of Western Australia

Invited Presentation

Speaker

Prof. Elisabetta Barberio (University of Melbourne)

Description

SABRE South is located at the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory (SUPL), the only deep underground laboratory in the Southern Hemisphere, 1025 m underground (~2900 m water equivalent) in the Stawell Gold Mines, Victoria. The detector uses ultra-high-purity NaI(Tl) crystals with purity comparable to DAMA, combined with an active liquid scintillator and muon veto system. Together with its Northern Hemisphere twin, SABRE North (LNGS, Italy), SABRE South enables a dual-hemisphere test of the dark matter annual modulation signal, distinguishing a genuine signal from seasonal backgrounds — possible only with a Southern Hemisphere detector.
Once stable data taking begins in January 2027, SABRE South will deliver a definitive test of the DAMA/LIBRA annual modulation signal at high statistical significance. Beyond this primary goal, the experiment's low background and crystal purity will enable searches for low-mass dark matter via the Migdal effect and absorption-based detection, and will provide sensitivity to galactic core-collapse supernova neutrinos as part of the SNEWS network.
This talk will present SABRE South's detector performance — including NaI(Tl) crystal purity, background levels, and muon flux measurements — its commissioning status, and physics reach.