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XENON100 |
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XENON100 - The next Step towards 1 Ton
After the very successful run of XENON10, the first XENON detector with an overall mass of 15 kg and a target mass of 5.4 kg (after cuts), a part of the collaboration decided to go one step further: XENON100 will have a 10 times larger fiducial volume. This will increase the sensitivity to the WIMP parameter space even further and will provide an improved chance to detect WIMPs directly.
| Although the fiducial mass of XENON100 is be 10 times larger than XENON10, the overall size of the experiment is still small enough to fit in the already existing shielding cavern at the Gran Sasso lab. The new experiment is updated and improved in many ways, however, since it is based on an already established detector, are quite confident that we will be able to run the first Dark Matter experiment with a detector mass of about 100 kg very soon. |
Drawing of the full XENON100 setup. The cryostat housing the TPC is installed inside a polyethylene/lead shielding. |
The design and optimization of XENON100 is currently under way, and we will start to assemble the system in Italy in fall 2007. First WIMP runs are expected for 2008. In the future, one could imagine an array of 10 XENON100 modules constituting the first 1 ton Dark Matter experiment.
Rice's Contribution to XENON100
| The Rice XENON group is involved in many aspects of the experiment: We contribute to the design of the time projection chamber (TPC), especially to the the anode and the cathode grids, and perform electrostatic simulations to improve its field homogeneity. |
Prototype of a XENON 100 TPC anode grid. |
The DAQ setup for XENON100. |
Rice is also involved in parts of the experiment slow control, in particular the precise monitoring of the liquid xenon level, and we are responsible for the data acquisition (DAQ) and the trigger.
In the future, we will focus on simulations of the XENON100 light response,
data analysis, and - of course - detector operation and calibrations.
updated: 02/25/2008 by Marc Schumann