The MiniCLEAN single-phase noble liquid dark matter experiment

MiniCLEAN is a single-phase noble-liquid WIMP dark matter experiment which observes only the scintillation light from a 500kg liquid argon target, allowing a detector design which can be scaled up to targets of 50 tons or more. MiniCLEAN's target is observed by a sphere of 92 photomultiplier tubes covering nearly 4π in solid angle, producing a projected light yield of better than 5 photoelectrons per keV and in turn a 3D position resolution of better than 50 mm at the edge of the detector. The high light yield will also benefit the utilization of pulse shape discrimination in order to fully separate background electron recoil events from nuclear recoils which would constitute the WIMP signal. The experiment can also utilize liquid neon as a target, which in the event of a positive signal will allow the expected A² dependence in the WIMP interaction rate to be probed, as well as produce very different intrinsic background characteristics. MiniCLEAN's projected sensitivity to the spin-independent WIMP-nucleon elastic cross section is roughly 2 × 10⁻⁴⁵ cm³ for a 100 GeV WIMP after two years of running with a LAr target. This talk will review the experimental technique, engineering design and current assembly status of the MiniCLEAN detector, in addition to the current status of measurements of the scintillation characteristics of argon and neon.