Ar DM - Construction Status

Construction Status

The ArDM detector is currently (August 2006) assembled at CERN; Geneva, Switzerland. Separate tests have been carried out for the light readout, the charge readout and the high voltage supply devices. The mounting of the detector above ground is planned to take place in December 2006. In a first phase of running the detector above ground, the readout devices and the high voltage supply will be tested and tuned in order to assess the detector performance characteristics as its energy threshold, its resolution and its background rejection power.

In a second phase (end of 2007), the detector is planned to be moved underground. An EoI (Expression of Interest) has been submitted to the Canfranc Underground Laboratory in Spain. During the run underground it will hopefully be possible either to detect the WIMP or to confirm/place limits on the WIMP-nucleon cross section.

Beyond the one-ton version, the detector size can be increased without fundamentally changing its technology. A ten ton liquid argon detector is a thinkable expansion possibility for ArDM. Current experiments for Dark Matter detection at a mass scale of 1 kg to 100 kg with negative results demonstrate the necessity of larger-mass experiments, if one wants to know what Dark Matter really is.