Proto-0: a prototype for validating key technologies of the DarkSide-20k experiment and beyond
Abstract
The DarkSide-20k experiment, currently under construction at LNGS, will employ a next-generation dual-phase liquid-argon Time Projection Chamber (TPC) with SiPM-based Photon Detector Units and low-background materials to achieve the ambitious goal of operating with an instrumental background close to zero. Proto-0 is a small-scale dual-phase argon TPC operated at INFN Naples, designed to validate the integration of DarkSide-20k key technologies in a realistic detector environment and to study charge extraction and electroluminescence signal formation. In this short paper we report on the early operation of Proto-0 and its single-phase commissioning. We focus on the measurement of the scintillation light yield using external and internal calibration sources.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2603.06347,
title = {Proto-0: a prototype for validating key technologies of the DarkSide-20k experiment and beyond},
author = {Riccardo de Asmundis and Roberta Calabrese and Mauro Caravati and Giuliana Fiorillo and Leandro Flores and Gianfrancesco Grauso and Giuseppe Matteucci and Noemi Pino and Dmitrii Rudik and Maria Adriana Sabia and Yury Suvorov},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.06347},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
7 pages, 3 figures, proceedings for LIDINE 2025: LIght Detection In Noble Elements conference