OPEN FOR BUSINESS
Fill out an Experimental Planning Statement to put your experiment under the veto shield in the main cavern. Email it to the people listed in the signature page. This is the first step in the scheduling and fee assignment process.
Gamma counting
LUX HPGe scheduling and details at the SOLO page
GOPHER HPGe under the Veto Shield, contact
Prisca Cushman
For underground electroformed copper, contact Reeves & Sons, LLC
2005 Synergies Workshop
Talks and Integrative Website
Printable flier with layout of the facility
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This facility is in response to the following
urgent and immediate needs in the underground science
community which must be addressed in the years before DUSEL
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- Screening of low-background materials and shielding for approved and proposed experiments
- Testing of prototypes by 2nd generation experiments and proposed new experiments
- Facilities and infrastructure in which to perform these tasks in a flexible, defined, and
cost-effective manner (economy of scale)
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Features of the Facility:
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- A 35ft x 40ft x 100ft underground experimental hall at a depth of 2090 mwe
(existing water, power, lighting, office space, network infrastructure)
- Total cavern coverage by active muon veto shield and a unified DAQ system, with user configurable trigger and remotely-accessible time-stamped muon database collecting in real time.
- A multipurpose clean room under multiple-coincident muon veto panels.
- Two HP Ge detectors for gamma screening and two novel beta screening devices: a neon gas drift chamber with multi-wire proportional readout and a resistive parallel plate chamber.
- Underground electroforming facility to make high purity copper
- Surface facilities for receiving, storage, assembly, remote computer access.
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The major arguments for placing it at Soudan are:
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- Availability: The removal of the Soudan2 proton decay experiment has opened up a 40 ft x 35 ft x 100 ft experimental hall, fully surrounded by a 99% efficient muon veto shield.
- Infrastructure: The Soudan Underground Laboratory already has two running large-scale experiments (MINOS and CDMS) in place, as well as a small gamma screening facility. The existing infrastructure can easily and quickly be expanded to encompass a new user facility to service the community. Education and outreach are natural extensions of its partnership with the Minnesota State Park in which it is located.
- Cost: The cost of such a facility is cheap, since lab infrastructure and management are already in place and duplication of these functions is unnecessary. Due to high scrap steel prices, the removal of the proton decay experiment paid for itself. The cost to develop the facility should be compared to the shielding and screening costs included individually in each experimental proposal. It is obvious that a multiple-user facility is far more cost efficient. The facility can be made self-sufficient after development, with an operating budget which pays for itself out of user fees to a broad community of end-users, which include public health, environmental monitoring, geomicrobiology, isotope geology, ancient C14 dating, semiconductor manufacturers, etc.
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Prisca Cushman