Paarl Africa Underground Laboratory (PAUL)

Robert Adam; Claire Antel; Munirat Bashir; Driss Benchekroun; Xavier Bertou; Markus Böttcher; Andy Buffler; Andrew Chen; Rouven Essig; Jules Gascon; Mohamed Gouighri; Trevor Hass; Gregory Hillhouse; Abdeslam Hoummada; Anslyn John; Pete Jones; Youssef Khoulaki; Luca Lavina; Lerothodi Leeuw; Mantile Lekala; Robert Lindsay; Roy Maartens; Yin-Zhe Ma; Fairouz Malek; Peane Maleka; Jacques Marteau; Rachid Mazini; Thebe Medupe; Bruce Mellado Garcia; Marcello Messina; Lumkile Msebi; Chilufya Mwewa; Zina Ndabeni; Richard Newman; George O'neill; Fabrice Piquemal; Lydia Roos; Daniel Santos; Silvia Scorza; Fedor Simkovic; Ivan Stekl; Yahya Tayalati; Smarajit Triambak; Zeblon Vilakazi; Shaun Wyngaardt; JJ van Zyl

arXiv · 2306.12083

Paarl Africa Underground Laboratory (PAUL)

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Abstract

Establishing a deep underground physics laboratory to study, amongst others, double beta decay, geoneutrinos, reactor neutrinos and dark matter has been discussed for more than a decade within the austral African physicists' community. PAUL, the Paarl Africa Underground Laboratory, is an initiative foreseeing an open international laboratory devoted to the development of competitive science in the austral region. It has the advantage that the location, the Huguenot tunnel, exists already and the geology and the environment of the site is appropriate for an experimental facility. The paper describes the PAUL initiative, presents the physics prospects and discusses the capacity for building the future experimental facility.

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Robert Adam, Claire Antel, Munirat Bashir, Driss Benchekroun, Xavier Bertou, Markus Böttcher, Andy Buffler, Andrew Chen, Rouven Essig, Jules Gascon, Mohamed Gouighri, Trevor Hass, Gregory Hillhouse, Abdeslam Hoummada, Anslyn John, Pete Jones, Youssef Khoulaki, Luca Lavina, Lerothodi Leeuw, Mantile Lekala, Robert Lindsay, Roy Maartens, Yin-Zhe Ma, Fairouz Malek, Peane Maleka, Jacques Marteau, Rachid Mazini, Thebe Medupe, Bruce Mellado Garcia, Marcello Messina, Lumkile Msebi, Chilufya Mwewa, Zina Ndabeni, Richard Newman, George O'neill, Fabrice Piquemal, Lydia Roos, Daniel Santos, Silvia Scorza, Fedor Simkovic, Ivan Stekl, Yahya Tayalati, Smarajit Triambak, Zeblon Vilakazi, Shaun Wyngaardt, JJ van Zyl. 2023-06-21. Paarl Africa Underground Laboratory (PAUL). https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.12083

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