Research @ KICP
Chicagoland Observatory for Underground Particle Physics, COUPP
Particles from Space
A new experimental effort to search for particle dark matter, the Chicagoland Observatory for Underground Particle Physics debuted in 2004. A prototype bubble chamber sensitive to Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) was installed in the MINOS near detector gallery at Fermilab (FNAL). The chamber contained two kg of CF3I, a fire-extinguishing liquid that can be superheated to respond to very low energy nuclear recoils like those expected from WIMPs while being totally insensitive to minimum ionizing particles, the dominant background in this type of searches. The COUPP collaboration presently runs a 4 kg chamber in the Canadian SNOlab underground site, with a recently comissioned 60 kg chamber to follow soon, and an ongoing design of a final 500 kg device.
Local COUPP Website (introduction to COUPP)
COUPP site at FNAL
KICP Highlights & News
Talks, Lectures, & Workshops