One main pillar of the cluster "Exploring Dark Matter" will be our leading contributions to the international effort leading up to the DARWIN observatory, which is a very large dual-phase time projection chamber (TPC) filled with xenon. DARWIN will be the ultimate stage in the successful line of XENON detectors developed over the last decade to which researchers from MPIK have made long-standing leading contributions. For an exposure of 50 tons over four years, DARWIN will improve the sensitivity of near-future direct Detection experiments by an order of Magnitude. For high WIMP masses, DARWIN will be of crucial importance to complement information from indirect WIMP searches with different messenger particles and WIMP production at the LHC. DARWIN will reach a sensitivity to WIMP cross sections down to the neutrino floor, where the coherent scattering of MeV-scale neutrinos off xenon nuclei forms an irreducible background.
The Cluster will operate, together with other members of the DARWIN consortium, a large-scale vertical drift Demonstrator. This facility will be contructed by reaearchers from KIT and Heidelberg and will ultimately be installed at the LNGS Underground lab. With a mass of 500 kg this demonstrator in itself will be the second largest xenonbased DM experiment in itself.
In this Project Proposal we would like to perform initial works to prepare a rapid build-up of the DARWIN demonstrator. To this end, we want to set up a HV test facility for noble-gas based cryofluids to be housed in an existing cryostat at KIT. This requires the purchase of the corresponding hardware (precisionHV supply unit for up to 200 kV to generate strong drift fields in the cryofluid) at an expericenced supplier (FUG). This unit will be operated by a hardware-oriented postdoctoral reseearcher at KIT.
Finally, the postodoctal researcher will lead the design efforts of the cryostat for the DARWIN demonstrator, which will be manufactured on-site or by an industrial partner.
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