Data Acquisition System and Preliminary Commissioning Data from SBC-LAr10 Detector at Fermilab

The Scintillating Bubble Chamber (SBC) Collaboration targets the detection of 1-10 GeV/c² dark matter particles using the liquid-noble bubble chamber technology. These detectors offer both the event-by-event energy resolution provided by liquid argon (LAr) scintillation, and a bubble chamber’s extraordinary insensitivity to electron recoil (ER) backgrounds. Compared to past freon-based bubble chambers, ER discrimination in liquid-noble bubble chambers extends to much lower thresholds, allowing us the possibility of quasi-background-free operation at O(100) eV nuclear recoil (NR) detection threshold. The SBC-LAr10 detector at Fermilab is a 10 kg LAr bubble chamber that has recently been installed in the MINOS tunnel 100 m underground for calibrating low-threshold ER and NR responses. I will introduce the data acquisition and data reduction systems for the detector, including the bubble imaging and LAr scintillation pipelines, and the acoustic pipeline used to link bubble nucleation to specific scintillation signals. I will also present our initial commissioning data as we prepare for the calibration campaign that will determine the physics reach of this new technology.