2015 CAP Congress / Congrès de l'ACP 2015

DEAP-3600 trigger - the needle in the haystack

16 Jun 2015, 14:15

15m

CCIS 1-140 (University of Alberta)

Oral (Non-Student) / orale (non-étudiant) Particle Physics / Physique des particules (PPD) T2-8 Cosmic frontier: Dark matter II (PPD) / Frontière cosmique: matière sombre II (PPD)

Speaker

Ben Smith (TRIUMF)

Description

DEAP-3600 is a dark matter experiment based at SNOLAB. It uses 3600kg of liquid argon as a target, and searches for scintillation light from argon nuclei struck by weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs). Argon-39 atoms also undergo beta decay, and the recoiling electrons also produce scintillation light. Beta decays are expected to occur at least $10^8$ times as frequently as WIMP interactions, and the DEAP-3600 trigger is critical in filtering out the vast majority of background events, while keeping 100% of signal events. This talk will explain the very flexible trigger scheme that was developed, and will detail the commissioning and optimisation of the system.

Presentation materials

Slides

BenSmith_20150616_CAP_DeapTrigger.pdf