Study of cosmogenic activation above ground of Ar for DarkSide-20k

Abstract

The production of long-lived radioactive isotopes due to the exposure to cosmic rays on the Earth's surface is an hazard for experiments searching for rare events like the direct detection of galactic dark matter particles. The use of large amounts of liquid Argon is foreseen in different projects, like the DarkSide-20k experiment, intended to look for Weakly Interacting Massive Particles at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso. Here, results from the study of the cosmogenic activation of Argon carried out in the context of DarkSide-20k are presented. The induced activity of several isotopes, including 39Ar, and the expected counting rates in the detector have been deduced, considering exposure conditions as realistic as possible.

arXiv commentProceedings of LIDINE 2023 (LIght Detection In Noble Elements) conference. Final version as published

References in corpus (15)

• Towards a More Complete and Accurate Experimental Nuclear Reaction Data Library (EXFOR): International Collaboration Between Nuclear Reaction Data Centres (NRDC)
• DarkSide-50 532-day Dark Matter Search with Low-Radioactivity Argon
• Electromagnetic Backgrounds and Potassium-42 Activity in the DEAP-3600 Dark Matter Detector
• Cosmogenic production of tritium in dark matter detectors
• Cosmogenic activation of materials
• Design and construction of a new detector to measure ultra-low radioactive-isotope contamination of argon
• Cosmogenic production of ${}^{39}$Ar and ${}^{37}$Ar in argon
• Mitigation of ${}^{42}$Ar/${}^{42}$K background for the GERDA Phase II experiment
• High Energy Activation Data Library (HEAD-2009)
• Measurement of isotopic separation of argon with the prototype of the cryogenic distillation plant Aria for dark matter searches
• Cosmogenic activation in double beta decay experiments
• Evaluation of cosmogenic production of ${}^{39}Ar$ and ${}^{42}Ar$ for rare-event physics using underground argon
• Study of cosmogenic activation above ground for the DarkSide-20k experiment
• A Facility for Low-Radioactivity Underground Argon
• The Low-Radioactivity Underground Argon Workshop: A workshop synopsis