Grant: Subatomic Physics Envelope - Project

The origin of the dark matter in our universe is currently one of the most important questions in particle astrophysics. It is well-established that most of the matter in our universe is dark. There is mounting evidence that suggests the dark matter is made up of a new particle, the WIMP, a weakly interacting massive particle, which could be detected by observing its elastic scattering from a nucleus. This proposal builds on recent efforts by the DEAP/CLEAN collaboration on using liquid argon for a sensitive dark matter search. We have demonstrated that a liquid argon detector can be used to discriminate background events to a very high level, and have placed significant effort on the continued design and engineering of a large detector with a 1000 kg fiducial volume of liquid argon. This detector will allow a sensitivity to the WIMP-nucleon cross-section of 10^{-46} cm^2 for a 100 GeV mass WIMP. We have used NSERC funds to continue the design of the large detector, and are pursuing R&D critical to finalize that design. The detector will require a large shielding tank (approximately 8 meters in diamter and 8 meters high) and significant civil construction underground at SNOLAB. This proposal requests support that will be required in 2008-2009 to complete the engineering and prototyping required for a final detector design, and to begin implementation of the detector infrastructure underground at SNOLAB.