The MiniCLEAN Experiment

The MiniCLEAN (Cryogenic Low-Energy Astrophysics with Noble liquids) detector is a prototype experiment in the search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter. A target of single phase liquid argon with a fiducial mass of 150 kg is being deployed in a spherical detector surrounded by cryogenic temperature photomultiplier tubes. This design maximizes light yield and allows pulse shape discrimination to be used to separate nuclear recoils from electron recoil background events. The detector will demonstrate the technologies necessary for a future generation dark matter and low energy solar neutrino experiment using, interchangeably, targets of argon and neon. This talk will include discussion of the neutron background model and will summarize the status of the ongoing commissioning and first physics runs at SNOLAB in Sudbury, Canada.