Depleted Argon from Underground Sources.

Argon is a strong scintillator and an ideal target for Dark Matter detection; however 39Ar contamination in atmospheric argon from cosmic ray interactions limits the size of liquid argon dark matter detectors due to pile-up. Argon from deep underground is depleted in 39Ar due to the cosmic ray shielding of the earth. In Cortez, Colorado, a CO2 well has been discovered to contain approximately 600 ppm of argon as a contamination in the CO2. We first concentrate the argon locally to 3% in an Ar, N2, and He mixture, from the CO2 through chromatographic gas separation, and then the N2 and He will be removed by continuous distillation to purify the argon. We have collected 26 kg of argon from the CO2 facility and a cryogenic distillation column is under construction at Fermilab to further purify the argon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]