Thomas J. Whitis with Tom Shutt

Design and Construction of a Liquid Phase Pump and Purification System for the LUX Dark Matter Experiment

The current generation of the Large Underground Xenon (LUX) detector, uses an external commercial getter and pump system to circulate and purify the xenon in the detector. Moving this system inside of the detector cryostat will greatly decrease the complexity of the xenon handling hardware, and will decrease the heat load on the detector from continuously evaporating and condensing xenon in order to circulate it outside of the detector. I will be designing, building and testing a liquid phase cryogenic pump out of appropriate materials for use in the xenon space of the detector. If this proceeds quickly I will also begin the design construction and testing of the high voltage spark chamber that will be used to replace the current commercial getter.