Exploring the mysteries of dark matter with liquid argon at −186°C
Abstract
<p indent="0mm">The exploration of dark matter is a hot research field, with argon playing a crucial role in direct detection experiments due to its superior properties at ultra-low backgrounds. Many experiments have utilized argon for dark matter detection, achieving significant results, particularly the DarkSide-50 and DEAP-3600 experiments. DEAP-3600 is currently the largest running single-phase liquid argon dark matter detection experiment, while DarkSide-50 employs a dual-phase argon time projection chamber, combining multiple innovative technologies to achieve a breakthrough in “background-free” detection within a high-mass range, providing the strongest constraints on the interaction cross-section between dark matter and ordinary particles at low-mass regions. The ongoing construction and planning of the DarkSide-20k, DarkSide-LowMass, and ARGO experiments aim to apply next-generation technologies based on the DarkSide-50 and DEAP-3600 experiments, striving to reduce the upper limit of the interaction cross-section between dark matter and ordinary matter to the range of neutrino fog. Among these, the DarkSide-LowMass experiment, led by the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and set up in the Jinping Underground Laboratory in China, aims to detect dark matter from sub-GeV/c² to <sc>10 GeV/c²</sc> and directly measure the coherent elastic scattering of solar neutrinos with nucleus. This article will review experiments utilizing liquid argon for direct dark matter detection.</p>
