The Argon Dark Matter Experiment

Abstract

The ArDM experiment, a 1 ton liquid argon TPC/Calorimeter, is designed for the detection of dark matter particles which can scatter off the spinless argon nucleus, producing nuclear recoils. These events will be discerned by their light to charge ratio, as well as the time structure of the scintillation light. The experiment is presently under construction and commissioning on surface at CERN. Cryogenic operation and light detection performance was recently confirmed in a test run of the full 1 ton liquid argon target under purely calorimetric operation and with a prototype light readout system. This note describes the experimental concept, the main detector components and presents some first results.