Mainz 2014 – scientific programme
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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik
T 97: Eingeladene Vorträge 3
T 97.1: Semi-Invited Talk
Thursday, March 27, 2014, 13:45–14:15, RW 1
The XENON Project, Enlightening the Dark — •Ethan Brown — Institut für Kernphysik, Universität Münster
A large amount of evidence supports the theory that 25% of the universe is composed of cold dark matter. The XENON project has conducted several experiments using a liquid xenon target in a dual phase time projection chamber (TPC) in an attempt to detect dark matter in the form of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs). The XENON100 experiment has conducted a dark matter search based on 225 live days of data without evidence for a dark matter signal, placing an upper limit on the WIMP-nucleon cross section of σ < 2.0 × 10−45 cm2.
The next phase of the XENON project aims to increase the sensitivity by two orders of magnitude by scaling up the existing 100 kg detector to the ton scale, now under construction. In order to achieve the sensitivity goal, detector performance must be similar to that of XENON100 while scaling up the detector size. Additionally, backgrounds must be substantially reduced by special material selection and purification techniques that are currently being developed.
Different aspects of this project are funded by BMBF and DFG.