Title: First Dark Matter Search Results from the XENON1T Experiment Author: E. Aprile, J. Aalbers, F. Agostini, M. Alfonsi, F. D. Amaro, M. Anthony, F. Arneodo, P. Barrow, L. Baudis, B. Bauermeister, M. L. Benabderrahmane, T. Berger, P. A. Breur, A. Brown, A. Brown, E. Brown, S. Bruenner, G. Bruno, R. Budnik, L. Bütikofer, J. Calvén, J. M. R. Cardoso, M. Cervantes, D. Cichon, D. Coderre, A. P. Colijn, J. Conrad, J. P. Cussonneau, M. P. Decowski, P. de Perio, P. Di Gangi, A. Di Giovanni, S. Diglio, G. Eurin, J. Fei, A. D. Ferella, A. Fieguth, W. Fulgione, A. Gallo Rosso, M. Galloway, F. Gao, M. Garbini, R. Gardner, C. Geis, L. W. Goetzke, L. Grandi, Z. Greene, C. Grignon, C. Hasterok, E. Hogenbirk, J. Howlett, R. Itay, B. Kaminsky, S. Kazama, G. Kessler, A. Kish, H. Landsman, R. F. Lang, D. Lellouch, L. Levinson, Q. Lin, S. Lindemann, M. Lindner, F. Lombardi, et al. (62 additional authors not shown)
We report the first dark matter search results from XENON1T, a ~2000-kg-target-mass dual-phase (liquid-gas) xenon time projection chamber in operation at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso in Italy and the first ton-scale detector of this kind. The blinded search used 34.2 live days of data acquired between November 2016 and January 2017. Inside the (1042±12) kg fiducial mass and in the [5, 40] keV_nr energy range of interest for WIMP dark matter searches, the electronic recoil background was (1.93±0.25) x 10^-4 events/(kg x day x keV_ee), the lowest ever achieved in a dark matter detector. A profile likelihood analysis shows that the data is consistent with the background-only hypothesis. We derive the most stringent exclusion limits on the spin-independent WIMP-nucleon interaction cross section for WIMP masses above 10 GeV/c², with a minimum of 7.7 x 10^-47 cm² for 35-GeV/c² WIMPs at 90% confidence level.
World's most sensitive dark matter detector releases first results
Scientists behind XENON1T, the largest dark matter experiment of its kind ever built, are encouraged by early results, describing them as the best so far in the search for dark matter. On May 18, the XENON Collaboration released results from a first, 30-day run of XENON1T, showing the detector has a record low radioactivity level, many orders of magnitude below surrounding material on earth. Read more
Title: The XENON1T Dark Matter Search Experiment Authors: Elena Aprile, XENON1T collaboration
The worldwide race towards direct dark matter detection in the form of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) has been dramatically accelerated by the remarkable progress and evolution of liquid xenon time projection chambers (LXeTPCs). With a realistic discovery potential, XENON100 has already reached a sensitivity of 7 x 10^{-45}\,\n{cm}², and continues to accrue data at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) in Italy towards its ultimate sensitivity reach at the \sigma_{\n{SI}}\sim 2 x 10^{-45}\,\n{cm}² level for the spin-independent WIMP-nucleon cross-section. To fully explore the favoured parameter space for WIMP dark matter in search of a first robust and statistically significant discovery, or to confirm any hint of a signal from \Xehund, the next phase of the XENON program will be a detector at the ton scale - XENON1T. The XENON1T detector, based on 2.2 ton of LXe viewed by low radioactivity photomultiplier tubes and housed in a water Cherenkov muon veto at LNGS, is presented. With an experimental aim of probing WIMP interaction cross-sections above of order \sigma_{\n{SI}}\sim 2 x 10^{-47}\,\n{cm}² within 2 years of operation, XENON1T will provide the sensitivity to probe a particularly favourable region of electroweak physics on a timescale compatible with complementary ground and satellite based indirect searches and with accelerator dark matter searches at the LHC. Indeed, for a \sigma_{\n{SI}} \sim 10^{-45}\,\n{cm}² and 100 \,\n{GeV/c²} WIMP mass, XENON1T could detect of order 100 events in this exposure, providing statistics for placing significant constraints on the WIMP mass.