COUPP 60 kg bubble chambers.  A prototype (left) and the final high purity physics grade bubble chamber (right) which is 30 cm diameter and 1 m long.

The COUPP 60 kg Bubble chamber operating system during above ground testing in fall 2009.

What is COUPP?

 

The Chicagoland Observatory for Underground Particle Physics (COUPP) experiment uses stable room-temperature bubble chambers to search for Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), which might compose a significant fraction of the universe. 

 

COUPP presently operates a 60 kg chamber at the ~300 m.w.e. depth of the NuMI tunnel at Fermilab as a test beam precursor of this project. The Coupp experiment team published first dark matter limits in Science on Feb 15, 2008.

 

How did the Mechanical Department support COUPP?

 

The PPD Mechanical Department designed and constructed a series of ever larger and improved detectors for the physicists.  COUPP bubble chambers have grown in size from 2 kg to 4 kg and now 60 kg.  Increasing the size of the detectors increases the chance that dark matter will hit the detector.  PPD/MD constructed the detectors with obsessive attention to cleanliness.  A pressure control system and assistance with operations start up also is part of our package.

 

For more information: COUPP webpage