The XENON100 Dark Matter Experiment
Abstract
The XENON100 dark matter experiment uses liquid xenon (LXe) in a time projection chamber (TPC) to search for Xe nuclear recoils resulting from the scattering of dark matter Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs). In this paper we present a detailed description of the detector design and present performance results, as established during the commissioning phase and during the first science runs. The active target of XENON100 contains 62 kg of LXe, surrounded by an LXe veto of 99 kg, both instrumented with photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) operating inside the liquid or in Xe gas. The LXe target and veto are contained in a low-radioactivity stainless steel vessel, embedded in a passive radiation shield. The experiment is installed underground at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS), Italy and has recently published results from a 100 live-days dark matter search. The ultimate design goal of XENON100 is to achieve a spin-independent WIMP-nucleon scattering cross section sensitivity of \sigma = 2x10^-45 cm^2 for a 100 GeV/c^2 WIMP.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1107.2155,
title = {The XENON100 Dark Matter Experiment},
author = {XENON100 Collaboration and E. Aprile and K. Arisaka and F. Arneodo and A. Askin and L. Baudis and A. Behrens and E. Brown and J. M. R. Cardoso and B. Choi and D. Cline and S. Fattori and A. D. Ferella and K. L. Giboni and A. Kish and C. W. Lam and R. F. Lang and K. E. Lim and J. A. M. Lopes and T. Marrodan Undagoitia and Y. Mei and A. J. Melgarejo Fernandez and K. Ni and U. Oberlack and S. E. A. Orrigo and E. Pantic and G. Plante and A. C. C. Ribeiro and R. Santorelli and J. M. F. dos Santos and M. Schumann and P. Shagin and A. Teymourian and E. Tziaferi and H. Wang and M. Yamashita},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1107.2155},
year = {2012}
}
Comments
23 pages, 27 figures; version accepted by journal