Seminars

Radon Control and Measurement at SNOLAB for Rare-Event Experiments

by Nasim Fatemighomi (SNOLAB)

Europe/London
R61 CR03 (RAL)

R61 CR03 (RAL)

Description
Current and future underground physics experiments at SNOLAB are trying to answer two fundamental questions: why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe, and what is the nature of dark matter. Achieving these goals requires an extraordinary level of control over radioactive backgrounds, which can obscure or mimic the extremely rare signals being sought.
Among these, the decay products of radon-222 present one of the most persistent and challenging sources of background. In this talk, I will present a range of techniques and methods we have developed and applied to characterize and suppress radon backgrounds in SNOLAB experiments. I will also highlight ongoing research efforts at SNOLAB aimed at establishing ultra-low-radon systems—efforts that are crucial for enabling the next generation of rare-event searches.
 
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About the speaker:
 

Nasim currently is a Research Scientist at SNOLAB, an underground laboratory located in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, where she works on low-background techniques for neutrino and dark matter experiments. She is a collaborator on the SNO+, XLZD, and DEAP-3600 experiments, and her main research focus is developing ultra-low-background radon detection and assay systems for these experiments. Before joining SNOLAB, she worked as a Research Associate at TRIUMF and Royal Holloway, University of London, and as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Queen’s University. During this time, she worked on the DEAP-3600 dark matter experiment and the SNO+ neutrinoless double-beta decay experiment. She completed her PhD in Physics at the University of Manchester, where she worked on the NEMO-3 and SuperNEMO neutrinoless double-beta decay experiment.