MiniCLEAN surface backgrounds

MiniCLEAN is a dark matter experiment using 150kg fiducial mass of liquid cryogen (argon or neon) to search for Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs). MiniCLEAN seeks to detect scintillation photons from WIMP-induced argon recoils. A potentially dominant background is from alpha decays on the inner surfaces of the containment vessel. Such events can mimic the prompt signal characteristic of nuclear recoils. This talk will show the expected background rates, methods of background discrimination, and their expected effectiveness.