Mainz 2012 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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HK: Fachverband Physik der Hadronen und Kerne

HK 63: Astroteilchenphysik

HK 63.5: Vortrag

Freitag, 23. März 2012, 15:00–15:15, RW 3

Dark Matter Search Results from the XENON100 Experiment — •Ethan Brown — Institut fuer Kernphysik, WWU Muenster

The XENON100 Experiment looks for a new unknown form of matter called Dark Matter in the form of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) by looking for nuclear recoils off of a target of liquid xenon. By utilizing a dual phase Time Projection Chamber (TPC) to measure the scintillation and ionization signals, event localization and discrimination of backgrounds due to electron recoils is possible. By operating a detector with a large active mass of 62kg in an ultra-low background environment, XENON100 has achieved excellent sensitivity to the WIMP-nucleon cross section, and is capable of probing much of the favored phase space predicted by theorists.

The results of a 100 live day dark matter search with the XENON100 detector will be presented, with an emphasis on background studies and detector characterization via calibrations. Additionally, the Profile Likelihood Analysis method will be discussed in the context of applying a statistical analysis of the experimental results, which allows for a robust statement of the interpretation of the results.

The work of the author has been supported by DFG (for XENON100, GZ: WE1 843/7-1) and BMBF (for XENON1T, GZ: 05A11PM1).