Report of the LSC (PDF format)
One of the most important activities carried out by the Nuclear and High Energy Physics group of the Zaragoza University has been the conditioning, maintenance and instrumentation of the Canfranc Underground Laboratory (LSC). This laboratory is unique for such a facility in Spain and despite his modest dimensions it is comparable, in terms of experimental sensitivity, to other leading facilities in observational underground physics research such as the National Gran Sasso Laboratory (Italy) and the Modane-Fréjus Laboratory (France).
In 1988, the Canfranc Underground Laboratory consisted of the two small halls plus a prefabricated cabin, specially reinforced, (of about 15 m2) and installed over the railway, conveniently fixed, next to the two halls. In august 1988, as result of a collaboration with the University of South Carolina (USC) and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), the first ultralow background detector came to Canfranc: a germanium hyperpure detector. With this detector preliminary measurements of materials like lead, copper, polyethylene, etc. were carried out and fifteen months later (November 1989) the first experiment (Coinc bb/g) started in the Canfranc Underground Laboratory (a multidetector system with 14 NaI scintillators and the germanium detector looking for the double beta decay of 76Ge). Since then, many other experiments have been operating in the Canfranc Underground Laboratory, which has undergone important modifications and improvements. In the following, they are briefly summarised.
In 1991 a new prefabricated cabin (about 27 m2) was added to the one already in operation and both were moved to a new location 1200 m from the Spanish entrance (below an overburden of 1380 m.w.e.). In this location and with the convenient conditioning of both cabins (electrical power installation, telephone, ventilation), they became Laboratory 2.
In 1994, while the excavation works for the new motorway Somport tunnel, the Spanish Ministry of Transport carried out and financed the excavation and conditioning works of a new experimental hall, 118 m2, at 2520 m from the spanish entrance and below an overburden of 2450 m.w.e. It was named Laboratory 3, and has been in operation since the beginning of 1995. This new hall, much larger and deeper underground, has provided for a quantitative and qualitative progress in the research activities of the group; it allowed to start new experiments and reach a clear improvement in the radioactive backgrounds. With the setting-up of this new hall, Laboratory 2 was dismounted. The small cabin was installed inside Laboratory 3 and the large one outside the tunnel for remote control of the experiments and communications Zaragoza-Canfranc. Laboratory 1 is used now only to store detectors and other materials (which so are kept shielded from the cosmic radiation).
Laboratory 3 has several experimental and control rooms for the different experiments lodged inside. It is also remarkable the AMBAR installation for measuring low contents of radioactive contaminants in materials intended for low-background experiments, and a low-temperature installation.
The Canfranc underground laboratory is located in the international railway tunnel of Somport at Canfranc (Spanish pyrenees)
Click on the picture for details of the laboratories
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