0000000000283301
AUTHOR
Amos Breskin
Physics reach of the XENON1T dark matter experiment.
The XENON1T experiment is currently in the commissioning phase at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, Italy. In this article we study the experiment's expected sensitivity to the spin-independent WIMP-nucleon interaction cross section, based on Monte Carlo predictions of the electronic and nuclear recoil backgrounds. The total electronic recoil background in $1$ tonne fiducial volume and ($1$, $12$) keV electronic recoil equivalent energy region, before applying any selection to discriminate between electronic and nuclear recoils, is $(1.80 \pm 0.15) \cdot 10^{-4}$ ($\rm{kg} \cdot day \cdot keV)^{-1}$, mainly due to the decay of $^{222}\rm{Rn}$ daughters inside the xenon target. The nu…
Conceptual design and simulation of a water Cherenkov muon veto for the XENON1T experiment
XENON is a direct detection dark matter project, consisting of a time projection chamber (TPC) that uses xenon in double phase as a sensitive detection medium. XENON100, located at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) in Italy, is one of the most sensitive experiments of its field. During the operation of XENON100, the design and construction of the next generation detector (of ton-scale mass) of the XENON project, XENON1T, is taking place. XENON1T is being installed at LNGS as well. It has the goal to reduce the background by two orders of magnitude compared to XENON100, aiming at a sensitivity of $2 \cdot 10^{-47} \mathrm{cm}^{\mathrm{2}}$ for a WIMP mass of 50 GeV/c$^{2}$. With…
Search for supermassive nuclei in nature
We report on a search for supermassive nuclei in nature with masses up to 107 amu. Such exotic nuclei might consist, for example, of stable strange matter, which comprises a mixture of up, down, and strange quarks, or of relic particles from the early Universe. The experiments are based on Rutherford backscattering of heavy ions, preferably238U, from various target samples. The measured parameters of a detected particle are its time-of-flight, scattering angle, and specific ionization. From this information the mass of the target nucleus can be inferred. Upper limits for the abundance of strange supermassive nuclei with massesA−4·102 to 107 amu relative to the number of nucleons were found …
A heavy-ion identification system for the detection of rare events
Abstract A large area detection system is described which consists of twelve low-pressure multi-wire proportional counters and is used in the search for exotic super-massive nuclei. The experiments are based on Rutherford backscattering of heavy ions, preferably 208Pb or 238U, from various target samples. The measured parameters of a detected particle are its time-of-flight, scattering angle, and specific ionization. From this information the mass of the target nucleus can be inferred. The present experimental sensitivity for the detection of exotic nuclei with at least twice the mass of the projectile is about 10−12 relative to the number of nucleons.
Search for strange matter by Rutherford backscattering
According to a number of suggestions, stable strange matter could exist in the form of supermassive nuclei (or 'strange nuggets')1,2. In contrast to ordinary nuclei, which contain only 'up' and 'down' quarks, a piece of strange matter should comprise a mixture of 'up', 'down' and 'strange' quarks in roughly equal proportions. Small amounts of strange matter could have survived from the early stages of the Universe1. Alternatively, strange matter might reach the Earth as a flux of strange nuggets produced in collisions of neutron stars3. Limits to the cosmic flux of strange nuggets with masses in the range from 10−4 to 250 g have been obtained in a search for light produced by the nuggets in…