High Energy Physics Seminar

The search for cosmological dark matter in the form of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) is currently an area of intense activity worldwide. Detection of dark matter particles would make those the largest known component of our universe and would require significant extension to the standard model of particle physics. In this seminar I will discuss the status of DEAP-1, a 10 kg dark matter experiment which exploits pulse-shape discrimination of scintillation light in liquid argon to provide background reduction required for a sensitive dark matter search. A summary of the design of the experiment, planned for deployment at SNOLAB, will be presented with emphasis on expected backgrounds to the dark matter search.