Excess electronic recoil events in XENON1T
We report results from searches for new physics with low-energy electronic recoil data recorded with the XENON1T detector. With an exposure of 0.65 t-y and an unprecedentedly low background rate of $76\pm2$ events/(t y keV) between 1 and 30 keV, the data enables sensitive searches for solar axions, an enhanced neutrino magnetic moment, and bosonic dark matter. An excess over known backgrounds is observed at low energies and most prominent between 2 and 3 keV. The solar axion model has a 3.4$\sigma$ significance, and a 3D 90% confidence surface is reported for axion couplings to electrons, photons, and nucleons. This surface is inscribed in the cuboid defined by $g_{ae}<3.8 \times 10^{-12}$,…
First Axion Results from the XENON100 Experiment
We present the first results of searches for axions and axion-like-particles with the XENON100 experiment. The axion-electron coupling constant, $g_{Ae}$, has been tested by exploiting the axio-electric effect in liquid xenon. A profile likelihood analysis of 224.6 live days $\times$ 34 kg exposure has shown no evidence for a signal. By rejecting $g_{Ae}$, larger than $7.7 \times 10^{-12}$ (90% CL) in the solar axion search, we set the best limit to date on this coupling. In the frame of the DFSZ and KSVZ models, we exclude QCD axions heavier than 0.3 eV/c$^2$ and 80 eV/c$^2$, respectively. For axion-like-particles, under the assumption that they constitute the whole abundance of dark matte…
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…
A low-mass dark matter search using ionization signals in XENON100
We perform a low-mass dark matter search using an exposure of 30\,kg$\times$yr with the XENON100 detector. By dropping the requirement of a scintillation signal and using only the ionization signal to determine the interaction energy, we lowered the energy threshold for detection to 0.7\,keV for nuclear recoils. No dark matter detection can be claimed because a complete background model cannot be constructed without a primary scintillation signal. Instead, we compute an upper limit on the WIMP-nucleon scattering cross section under the assumption that every event passing our selection criteria could be a signal event. Using an energy interval from 0.7\,keV to 9.1\,keV, we derive a limit on …
Search for Coherent Elastic Scattering of Solar B8 Neutrinos in the XENON1T Dark Matter Experiment
We report on a search for nuclear recoil signals from solar $^8$B neutrinos elastically scattering off xenon nuclei in XENON1T data, lowering the energy threshold from 2.6 keV to 1.6 keV. We develop a variety of novel techniques to limit the resulting increase in backgrounds near the threshold. No significant $^8$B neutrino-like excess is found in an exposure of 0.6 t $\times$ y. For the first time, we use the non-detection of solar neutrinos to constrain the light yield from 1-2 keV nuclear recoils in liquid xenon, as well as non-standard neutrino-quark interactions. Finally, we improve upon world-leading constraints on dark matter-nucleus interactions for dark matter masses between 3 GeV/…
Search for inelastic scattering of WIMP dark matter in XENON1T
We report the results of a search for the inelastic scattering of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) in the XENON1T dark matter experiment. Scattering off $^{129}$Xe is the most sensitive probe of inelastic WIMP interactions, with a signature of a 39.6 keV de-excitation photon detected simultaneously with the nuclear recoil. Using an exposure of 0.89 tonne-years, we find no evidence of inelastic WIMP scattering with a significance of more than 2$\sigma$. A profile-likelihood ratio analysis is used to set upper limits on the cross-section of WIMP-nucleus interactions. We exclude new parameter space for WIMPs heavier than 100 GeV/c${}^2$, with the strongest upper limit of $3.3 \time…
Light Dark Matter Search with Ionization Signals in XENON1T
We report constraints on light dark matter (DM) models using ionization signals in the XENON1T experiment. We mitigate backgrounds with strong event selections, rather than requiring a scintillation signal, leaving an effective exposure of (22±3) tonne day. Above ∼0.4 keVee, we observe <1 event/(tonne day keVee), which is more than 1000 times lower than in similar searches with other detectors. Despite observing a higher rate at lower energies, no DM or CEvNS detection may be claimed because we cannot model all of our backgrounds. We thus exclude new regions in the parameter spaces for DM-nucleus scattering for DM masses mχ within 3–6 GeV/c2, DM-electron scattering for mχ>30 MeV/c2, a…
XENON1T Dark Matter Data Analysis: Signal Reconstruction, Calibration and Event Selection
The XENON1T experiment at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso is the most sensitive direct detection experiment for dark matter in the form of weakly interacting particles (WIMPs) with masses above $6\,$GeV/$c^2$ scattering off nuclei. The detector employs a dual-phase time projection chamber with 2.0 metric tons of liquid xenon in the target. A one metric $\mathrm{ton}\times\mathrm{year}$ exposure of science data was collected between October 2016 and February 2018. This article reports on the performance of the detector during this period and describes details of the data analysis that led to the most stringent exclusion limits on various WIMP-nucleon interaction models to date. In pa…
Search for WIMP Inelastic Scattering off Xenon Nuclei with XENON100
We present the first constraints on the spin-dependent, inelastic scattering cross section of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) on nucleons from XENON100 data with an exposure of 7.64 ×103 kg .days . XENON100 is a dual-phase xenon time projection chamber with 62 kg of active mass, operated at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) in Italy and designed to search for nuclear recoils from WIMP-nucleus interactions. Here we explore inelastic scattering, where a transition to a low-lying excited nuclear state of Xe 129 is induced. The experimental signature is a nuclear recoil observed together with the prompt deexcitation photon. We see no evidence for such inelastic WIMP-Xe…
Search for Event Rate Modulation in XENON100 Electronic Recoil Data
We have searched for periodic variations of the electronic recoil event rate in the (2-6) keV energy range recorded between February 2011 and March 2012 with the XENON100 detector, adding up to 224.6 live days in total. Following a detailed study to establish the stability of the detector and its background contributions during this run, we performed an un-binned profile likelihood analysis to identify any periodicity up to 500 days. We find a global significance of less than 1 sigma for all periods suggesting no statistically significant modulation in the data. While the local significance for an annual modulation is 2.8 sigma, the analysis of a multiple-scatter control sample and the phas…
$^{222}$Rn emanation measurements for the XENON1T experiment
The selection of low-radioactive construction materials is of utmost importance for the success of low-energy rare event search experiments. Besides radioactive contaminants in the bulk, the emanation of radioactive radon atoms from material surfaces attains increasing relevance in the effort to further reduce the background of such experiments. In this work, we present the $^{222}$Rn emanation measurements performed for the XENON1T dark matter experiment. Together with the bulk impurity screening campaign, the results enabled us to select the radio-purest construction materials, targeting a $^{222}$Rn activity concentration of 10 $\mu$Bq/kg in 3.2 t of xenon. The knowledge of the distribut…
Search for Light Dark Matter Interactions Enhanced by the Migdal Effect or Bremsstrahlung in XENON1T.
Direct dark matter detection experiments based on a liquid xenon target are leading the search for dark matter particles with masses above ∼5 GeV/c2, but have limited sensitivity to lighter masses because of the small momentum transfer in dark matter-nucleus elastic scattering. However, there is an irreducible contribution from inelastic processes accompanying the elastic scattering, which leads to the excitation and ionization of the recoiling atom (the Migdal effect) or the emission of a bremsstrahlung photon. In this Letter, we report on a probe of low-mass dark matter with masses down to about 85 MeV/c2 by looking for electronic recoils induced by the Migdal effect and bremsstrahlung us…
Projected WIMP sensitivity of the XENONnT dark matter experiment
XENONnT is a dark matter direct detection experiment, utilizing 5.9 t of instrumented liquid xenon, located at the INFN Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso. In this work, we predict the experimental background and project the sensitivity of XENONnT to the detection of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs). The expected average differential background rate in the energy region of interest, corresponding to (1, 13) keV and (4, 50) keV for electronic and nuclear recoils, amounts to 12.3 ± 0.6 (keV t y)-1 and (2.2± 0.5)× 10−3 (keV t y)-1, respectively, in a 4 t fiducial mass. We compute unified confidence intervals using the profile construction method, in order to ensure proper coverage…
Effective field theory search for high-energy nuclear recoils using the XENON100 dark matter detector
International audience; We report on weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) search results in the XENON100 detector using a nonrelativistic effective field theory approach. The data from science run II (34 kg×224.6 live days) were reanalyzed, with an increased recoil energy interval compared to previous analyses, ranging from (6.6–240) keVnr. The data are found to be compatible with the background-only hypothesis. We present 90% confidence level exclusion limits on the coupling constants of WIMP-nucleon effective operators using a binned profile likelihood method. We also consider the case of inelastic WIMP scattering, where incident WIMPs may up-scatter to a higher mass state, and …