Search results for "WIMP"
showing 10 items of 76 documents
The experimental facility for the Search for Hidden Particles at the CERN SPS
2019
The Search for Hidden Particles (SHiP) Collaboration has shown that the CERN SPS accelerator with its 400 $\mathrm{\small GeV/c}$ proton beam offers a unique opportunity to explore the Hidden Sector. The proposed experiment is an intensity frontier experiment which is capable of searching for hidden particles through both visible decays and through scattering signatures from recoil of electrons or nuclei. The high-intensity experimental facility developed by the SHiP collaboration is based on a number of key features and developments which provide the possibility of probing a large part of the parameter space for a wide range of models with light long-lived superweakly interacting particles…
Constraining the spin-dependent WIMP-nucleon cross sections with XENON1T
2019
We report the first experimental results on spin-dependent elastic weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) nucleon scattering from the XENON1T dark matter search experiment. The analysis uses the full ton year exposure of XENON1T to constrain the spin-dependent proton-only and neutron-only cases. No significant signal excess is observed, and a profile likelihood ratio analysis is used to set exclusion limits on the WIMP-nucleon interactions. This includes the most stringent constraint to date on the WIMP-neutron cross section, with a minimum of 6.3 × 10−42 cm2 at 30 GeV/c2 and 90% confidence level. The results are compared with those from collider searches and used to exclude new paramet…
Combination of Searches for Invisible Higgs Boson Decays with the ATLAS Experiment
2019
Dark matter particles, if sufficiently light, may be produced in decays of the Higgs boson. This Letter presents a statistical combination of searches for H → invisible decays where H is produced according to the standard model via vector boson fusion, Z(ℓℓ)H, and W/Z(had)H, all performed with the ATLAS detector using 36.1 fb⁻¹ of pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of √s = 13 TeV at the LHC. In combination with the results at √s = 7 and 8 TeV, an exclusion limit on the H → invisible branching ratio of 0.26(0.17-0.05+0.07) at 95% confidence level is observed (expected).
Effective field theory search for high-energy nuclear recoils using the XENON100 dark matter detector
2017
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 …
Projected WIMP sensitivity of the XENONnT dark matter experiment
2020
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…
Shell Model Description of Spin-Dependent Elastic and Inelastic WIMP Scattering off 119Sn and 121Sb
2022
In this work, we calculate the spin structure functions for spin-dependent elastic and inelastic WIMP scattering off 119Sn and 121Sb. Estimates for detection rates are also given. 119Sn and 121Sb are amenable to nuclear structure calculations using the nuclear shell model (NSM). With the possible exception of 201Hg, they are the only such nuclei still unexplored theoretically for their potential of inelastic WIMP scattering to a very low excited state. The present calculations were conducted using a state-of-the-art WIMP–nucleus scattering formalism, and the available effective NSM two-body interactions describe the spectroscopic properties of these nuclei reasonably well. Structure functio…
Online 222 Rn removal by cryogenic distillation in the XENON100 experiment
2017
We describe the purification of xenon from traces of the radioactive noble gas radon using a cryogenic distillation column. The distillation column was integrated into the gas purification loop of the XENON100 detector for online radon removal. This enabled us to significantly reduce the constant 222 Rn background originating from radon emanation. After inserting an auxiliary 222 Rn emanation source in the gas loop, we determined a radon reduction factor of R>27 (95% C.L.) for the distillation column by monitoring the 222 Rn activity concentration inside the XENON100 detector.
First Dark Matter Search Results from the XENON1T Experiment
2017
We report the first dark matter search results from XENON1T, a ∼2000-kg-target-mass dual-phase (liquid-gas) xenon time projection chamber in operation at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso in Italy and the first ton-scale detector of this kind. The blinded search used 34.2 live days of data acquired between November 2016 and January 2017. Inside the (1042±12)-kg fiducial mass and in the [5,40] keVnr energy range of interest for weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter searches, the electronic recoil background was (1.93±0.25)×10-4 events/(kg×day×keVee), the lowest ever achieved in such a dark matter detector. A profile likelihood analysis shows that the data are consisten…
Conceptual design and simulation of a water Cherenkov muon veto for the XENON1T experiment
2014
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…
Spin-dependent WIMP-nucleus scattering off 125Te, 129Xe, and 131Xe in the microscopic interacting boson-fermion model
2019
We perform calculations of structure functions for elastic and inelastic spin-dependent scattering of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) off 125Te, 129Xe, and 131Xe. The nuclear structure calculations are performed in the microscopic interacting boson-fermion model (IBFM-2). In our calculations we employ one-body and leading long-range two-body WIMP-nucleus currents derived from chiral effective field theory. We demonstrate that the relevant matrix elements can be reliably computed in the IBFM-2, which will allow investigation of heavy deformed nuclei previously inaccessible to theoretical calculations. peerReviewed