Constructing DRIFT-2: The New Dark Matter Detector. Atanas Petkov and Stanley Burgos

Abstract

Dark Matter is one of the greatest mysteries in Physics today. DRIFT - a dark matter detector designed to search for WIMPs (a dark matter candidate) has been working and trying to find dark matter for several years now. In order to improve the efficiency of our search for dark matter, however, a new and improved dark matter detector is being built, based on DRIFT. It is called DRIFT-2. This summer we started building DRIFT-2. DRIFT-2 consists of several detectors very similar to DRIFT. So far we have built several MWPCs (Multi Wire Proportional Chambers) which are the "heart" of each detector. We have also been working on the DAQ (Data Acquisition System) for DRIFT-2. We have written a program in the programming language C that reads in electric signals from four circuit boards attached to the MWPC. Once all the detector units are done they will be deployed to England, where they will be put in a mine and connected to the DAQ. Then they can start collecting data, which in turn will be analyzed. With DRIFT-2 we hope that we find an answer to our question what exactly is dark matter.