Direct Search for Dark Matter with XENON

          @misc{ pirsa_PIRSA:09060057,
            doi = {10.48660/09060057},
            url = {https://pirsa.org/09060057},
            author = {Oberlack, Uwe},
            keywords = {Particle Physics, Cosmology},
            language = {en},
            title = {Direct Search for Dark Matter with XENON},
            publisher = {Perimeter Institute},
            year = {2009},
            month = {jun},
            note = {PIRSA:09060057 see, \url{https://pirsa.org}}
          }
          

Abstract

The XENON project pursues the goal of directly detecting nuclear recoils resulting from scattering interactions with Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), using a phased approach of increasingly more sensitive experiments. The detector consists of a dual-phase liquid/gas xenon time projection chamber, which can measure down to ~2 keV(ee) energy threshold and discriminates against background using both the primary scintillation light and the charge signal resulting from interactions in the noble liquid. The current exeriment XENON100 is the successor of the highly successful XENON10 detector, featuring 10 times greater sensitive mass and 100 times lower background. Its sensitivity with an ultimate exposure of 6000 kg days will be 2 times 10^{-45} cm^2 for spin-independent interactions at 100 GeV/c^2. XENON100 has been installed and is operating. I will report on the present status and discuss its physics reach along with future prospects of detectors at the ton scale.