Speaker
Paolo Beltrame
(University of Edinburgh)
Description
The Large Underground Xenon (LUX) experiment is a 350kg liquid xenon time projection chamber (TPC) designed to directly detect galactic dark matter. Currently deployed 1 mile underground in the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, South Dakota, LUX completed its first physics run in 2013 collecting 85.3 live-days of science data. The profile-likelihood based analysis has shown no evidence for signal, setting the best limit on spin independent WIMP-nucleon cross section with a minimum of 7.6 × 10^-46 cm2 for WIMP mass of 33 GeV/c^2 at 90% CL.
LUX is presently conducting a 300-day data set. We will present the present run status together with details of new calibrations and improvements to data analysis.
Although optimised to detect weakly interacting massive particles, this Xe based TPC is particularly suitable for exploration of alternative dark matter scenarios - for example spin-dependent WIMP interaction, effective field theory approaches, axions and axion-like particles. The present status of these searches will also be presented.
Primary author
Paolo Beltrame
(University of Edinburgh)