Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory

The Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory (SUPL) is a laboratory under construction 1 km deep in the Stawell Goldmine, located in Stawell, Victoria, Australia. Of the two underground particle physics laboratories being proposed in the Southern Hemisphere, it is by far the most advanced.[1] It has close collaboration with the Gran Sasso Laboratory in Italy,[2] the largest such underground laboratory, and shall conduct research into dark matter.[3]

General information

SUPL is located at a depth of 1,025 metres (3,363 ft), providing approximately 2900 metre water equivalent shielding against cosmic rays.[4] As a decline (ramp) mine, cars and trucks can be driven to the laboratory site.[5] The laboratory will consist of a main tunnel approximately 10 metres high and 10 metres wide (33×33 ft), divided into 25 metres (80 ft) of clean room space for experiments, and 15 metres (50 ft) of "dirty" loading area.[4] A side tunnel 5 m wide and 20 m long (15×65 ft) houses physical plant and personnel facilities.[5][4]

The first phase of the project received $1.75 million funding in the 2015 Australian federal budget. With matching funding from Victoria,[6] detailed design will proceed and construction will start in early 2016.[7][8] As of July 2016 construction is underway and expected to be complete in 2017.[5]

Its Southern Hemisphere location has bearing on the possible differential detection of the putative WIMP-wind. Northern Hemisphere instruments are showing hints of a June "bump" of possible dark matter hits,[9] which is expected given the galaxy's rotation, but it is hard to be sure that it is not a false signal due to some subtle seasonal environmental effect. A Southern Hemisphere location, with opposite seasons, would be valuable confirmation. Secondly, the sundry particles (apparently from the constellation Cygnus)[10][11] would have travelled through the Earth itself before reaching SUPL's instruments.[12] Finally, its Southern Hemisphere location also makes it potentially very sensitive to daily variation effects which would be a smoking-gun for self-interacting dark matter or dark matter with a significant stopping rate.[13][14]

Neutrino experiments do not benefit in the same way from a Southern Hemisphere location, and what need there is for neutrino astronomy in the Southern Hemisphere is satisfied by IceCube, so it is unlikely that any neutrino detectors will be housed at SUPL.

The first experiment planned for SUPL is SABRE[4][15] (Sodium-iodide with Active Background REjection), based on 50 kg of thallium-doped sodium iodide.[16][17] An improved version of the DAMA/LIBRA detector[18][5] already operating at at LNGS, two copies will be built:[16] one at LNGS and one at SUPL. Consistent results between the two will be very strong evidence.

References

  1. ↑ The other is the Agua Negra Deep Experiment Site (ANDES), trying to get funding to be added to the Agua Negra Pass highway tunnel just beginning construction. Because the tunnel itself will take many years to construct, the laboratory could not possibly begin operation before the early 2020s.
  2. ↑ Coughlan, Matt (24 September 2014). "Stawell particle physics laboratory - scientists to speak on Tuesday". Wimmera Mail-Times.
  3. ↑ "Government Digs Deep With Plan For Stawell's Future" (Press release). Premier of Victoria. 13 February 2015.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Urquijo, Phillip (15 September 2015). Searching for Dark Matter at the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory (abstract) (PDF). Heavy Ion Acceleration Symposium. Canberra. pp. 4–6.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Froborg, Francis (20 July 2016). SABRE: WIMP Modulation Detection in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere. Identification of Dark Matter 2016. Sheffield. p. 11.
  6. ↑ "Funding Go Ahead For Stawell Physics Lab" (Press release). Victoria Minister for Regional Development. 20 November 2015.
  7. ↑ "Stawell dark matter lab construction expected to start in early 2016". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 14 May 2015. Retrieved 2015-05-20.
  8. ↑ "Victorian Government matches $1.75m in federal funds for Stawell dark matter lab". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 25 November 2015. Retrieved 2016-01-16.
  9. ↑ Jamieson, Valerie (3 May 2011). "Second experiment hints at seasonal dark matter signal". New Scientist.
  10. ↑ Monroe, Jocelyn; Battat, James (2009). "Winds of Change in the Hunt for Dark Matter" (PDF). MIT Physics Annual.
  11. ↑ Billard, J.; Mayet, F.; Grignon, C.; Santos, D. (January 2011). "Directional detection of Dark Matter with MIMAC: WIMP identification and track reconstruction". Journal of Physics Conference Series. 309 (1): 012015. arXiv:1101.2750Freely accessible. doi:10.1088/1742-6596/309/1/012015.
  12. ↑ Slezak, Michael (18 July 2014). "Panning for dark matter in an Australian gold mine". New Scientist. Retrieved 2015-05-20.
  13. ↑ Kouvaris, C.; Shoemaker, I. (2014). "Daily modulation as a smoking gun of dark matter with significant stopping rate". Physical Review D. 90: 095011. arXiv:1405.1729Freely accessible. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.90.095011.
  14. ↑ Foot, R.; Vagnozzi, S. (2015). "Diurnal modulation signal from dissipative hidden sector dark matter". Physics Letters B. 748: 61–66. arXiv:1412.0762Freely accessible. doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2015.06.063.
  15. ↑ Barberio, Elisabetta (2 November 2015). "Direct Dark Matter Detection in Australia (colloquium abstract)". University of Sydney School of Physics. Retrieved 2016-01-17.
  16. 1 2 Froborg, Francis (9 September 2015). SABRE: WIMP Modulation Detection in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere (PDF). Topics in Astroparticle and Underground Physics.
  17. ↑ Barberio, Elisabetta (16 September 2015). "How we plan to bring dark matter to light". The Conversation.
  18. ↑ Roberts, Glenn Jr. (12 October 2015). "Australia's first dark matter experiment". Symmetry Magazine.

Coordinates: 37°04′S 142°49′E / 37.07°S 142.81°E / -37.07; 142.81 (Stawell Gold Mine)

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