Speaker
Mr
Gaudenz Kessler
(Universität Zürich)
Description
The XENON100 detector, which is being operated at the Gran Sasso Underground Laboratory, is a dual phase (liquid-gas) xenon time-projection chamber for particle detection. The total amount of liquid xenon is 161 kg, of which 62 kg are in the active target enclosed in a Teflon/copper structure, the rest being in the surrounding active veto. The direct and proportional UV light signal produced by particle interactions is detected by 242 PMTs.
To-date XENON100 is one of the most sensitive detector for direct dark matter detection, and has set limits on the spin-independent elastic WIMP-nucleon scattering for WIMP masses above 8 GeV/c^2, with a minimum cross section of 2e-45 cm^2 at 55 GeV/c^2 at 90% confidence level.
XENON1T, the next generation Dark Matter Experiment, is being under construction and will house a total amount of 3t of xenon with a fiducial mass of about 1t and a science goal of 2e-47 cm^2 at 100 GeV/c^2. Therefore it has a 100 times lower intrinsic background than XENON100 and it is surrounded by a water tank that acts as an active muon veto. In order to detect the scintillation light from particle interactions with the xenon target, 248 3-inch photomultiplier tubes will be installed on the top and bottom of the TPC. It is planned to upgrade the Experiment to XENONnT with a fiducial target volume of about 4t during the run of XENON1T.
In this talk, the present the results of the XENON100 experiment and the status of the near-future plans of the XENON collaboration will be reported.
Primary author
Mr
Gaudenz Kessler
(Universität Zürich)
