We report the first measurement of the total MUON flux underground at the Davis Campus of the Sanford Underground Research Facility at the 4850 ft level. Measurements were done with the Majorana Demonstrator veto system arranged in two different configurations. The measured total flux is (5.31+/-0.17) x 10^-9 muons/s/cm^2.
Deep underground environments are ideal for low background searches due to the attenuation of cosmic rays by passage through the earth. However, they are affected by backgrounds from $gamma$-rays emitted by $^{40}$K and the $^{238}$U and $^{232}$Th d
ecay chains in the surrounding rock. The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment will search for dark matter particle interactions with a liquid xenon TPC located within the Davis campus at the Sanford Underground Research Facility, Lead, South Dakota, at the 4,850-foot level. In order to characterise the cavern background, in-situ $gamma$-ray measurements were taken with a sodium iodide detector in various locations and with lead shielding. The integral count rates (0--3300~keV) varied from 596~Hz to 1355~Hz for unshielded measurements, corresponding to a total flux in the cavern of $1.9pm0.4$~$gamma~$cm$^{-2}$s$^{-1}$. The resulting activity in the walls of the cavern can be characterised as $220pm60$~Bq/kg of $^{40}$K, $29pm15$~Bq/kg of $^{238}$U, and $13pm3$~Bq/kg of $^{232}$Th.
Measuring the muon flux is important to the Sanford Underground Laboratory at Homestake, for which several low background experiments are being planned. The nearly-vertical cosmic ray muon flux was measured in three locations at this laboratory: on t
he surface (1.149 pm 0.017 x 10^-2 cm^-2 s^-1 sr^-1), at the 800-ft (0.712 km w.e.) level (2.67 pm 0.06 x 10^-6 cm^-2 s^-1 sr^-1), and at the 2000-ft (1.78 km w.e.) level (2.56 pm 0.25 x 10^-7 cm^-2 s^-1 sr^-1). These fluxes agree well with model predictions.
Neutrinoless double-beta decay searches seek to determine the nature of neutrinos, the existence of a lepton violating process, and the effective Majorana neutrino mass. The {sc Majorana} Collaboration is assembling an array of high purity Ge detecto
rs to search for neutrinoless double-beta decay in $^{76}$Ge. The {sc Majorana Demonstrator} is composed of 44.8~kg (29.7 kg enriched in $^{76}$Ge) of Ge detectors in total, split between two modules contained in a low background shield at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, South Dakota. The initial goals of the {sc Demonstrator} are to establish the required background and scalability of a Ge-based, next-generation, tonne-scale experiment. Following a commissioning run that began in 2015, the first detector module started physics data production in early 2016. We will discuss initial results of the Module 1 commissioning and first physics run, as well as the status and potential physics reach of the full {sc Majorana Demonstrator} experiment. The collaboration plans to complete the assembly of the second detector module by mid-2016 to begin full data production with the entire array.
The Large Underground Xenon (LUX) experiment, a dual-phase xenon time-projection chamber operating at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (Lead, South Dakota), was cooled and filled in February 2013. We report results of the first WIMP search d
ataset, taken during the period April to August 2013, presenting the analysis of 85.3 live-days of data with a fiducial volume of 118 kg. A profile-likelihood analysis technique shows our data to be consistent with the background-only hypothesis, allowing 90% confidence limits to be set on spin-independent WIMP-nucleon elastic scattering with a minimum upper limit on the cross section of $7.6 times 10^{-46}$ cm$^{2}$ at a WIMP mass of 33 GeV/c$^2$. We find that the LUX data are in strong disagreement with low-mass WIMP signal interpretations of the results from several recent direct detection experiments.
The Majorana Demonstrator is an ultra low-background experiment searching for neutrinoless double-beta decay in $^{76}$Ge. The heavily shielded array of germanium detectors, placed nearly a mile underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facilit
y in Lead, South Dakota, also allows searches for new exotic physics. We present the first limits for tri-nucleon decay-specific modes and invisible decay modes for Ge isotopes. We find a half-life limit of $4.9 times 10^{25}$ yr for the decay $^{76}{rm Ge(ppn)} to {}^{73}{rm Zn} e^+pi^+$ and $4.7times10^{25}$ yr for the decay $^{76}{rm Ge(ppp)} to ^{73}{rm Cu} e^+pi^+pi^+$. The half-life limit for the invisible tri-proton decay mode of $^{76}$Ge was found to be $7.5times10^{24}$ yr.
N. Abgrall
,E. Aguayo
,F.T. Avignone III
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(2016)
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"Muon Flux Measurements at the Davis Campus of the Sanford Underground Research Facility with the Majorana Demonstrator Veto System"
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Yuri Efremenko
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