WARP
Collaboration
Laboratory: Gran
Sasso National Laboratory
1. Goal of the experiment
The experiment aims at the unambiguous identification of Dark
Matter candidates (WIMPS) by means of the detection of nuclear
recoils in liquid argon. The proposed technique combines the
experience and the tools developed for the ICARUS experiment for
handling ultra-purified liquid argon and for detecting the argon
scintillation light with the technique developed, also by the
ICARUS Collaboration, for detecting and discriminating nuclear
recoils in liquid xenon.
2.
Activities during 2001
During 2001 a relatively small prototype (~20 lt sensitive
volume) was setup and operated both in laboratory and on a
neutron beam in Legnaro National Laboratory (LNL) to adapt and
perfect the readout technique in liquid argon and to study the
nuclear recoil discrimination and detection efficiency.
The results from laboratory tests demonstrate that the proposed
readout technique (direct detection of primary scintillation
followed by secondary scintillation coming from ionization
electrons extracted from the liquid and accelerated in the gas
phase) is suitable for application in liquid argon. Analysis of
the data collected on the neutron beam is currently in progress
to study nuclear recoil detection and discrimination
efficiencies.
Milestones 2002
This development activity is currently under examination by
the CSN2
3. INFN contribution to the experiment in
terms of manpower and financial support
The activity is currently carried on as part of the R&D for
the ICARUS experiment on scintillation light detection both in
the INFN Pavia laboratory and in CERN. Financial support is
completely given by INFN through INFN funding of the general
activities of the Pavia Gruppo II (expense chapter Dotazioni) and
as part of the contribution to the ICARUS activity .People
actively working on the subject are from the INFN Pavia group and
from the Italian components of the Icarus Collaboration (from
Padova and Torino) working at CERN. The involved researchers are
9 (1.9 FTE) with the technical support from the partecipating
Sezioni.
4. Publications in refereed journals:
0
5. Conferences talks: 1
6. Number of undergraduate and doctoral
thesis on the experiment: 0
7. Leadership role in the experiment
C. Rubbia (Universita' degli Studi di Pavia ed INFN Sezione
di Pavia) Spokesman
8. Innovative instruments
9. Competing experiments
The project is in competition with the many experiments working
on Dark Matter (DAMA, CUORE, etc.)