Speaker
Alexander Kish
(Physik-Institut UZH)
Description
Detectors based on noble gases are a very efficient and promising technology which leads the active field of dark matter searches.
The XENON collaboration aims at a direct detection of dark matter with experiments based on liquid xenon. The XENON100 detector, which is being operated at the Gran Sasso Underground Laboratory in Italy, is a dual-phase time-projection chamber with a 62 kg target volume, which has set the best limits on spin-independent WIMP-nucleus scattering at the time of publication. The next step of the research program, the XENON1T experiment is currently under construction, and features 2t of liquid xenon in the target, the ~10m water tank for background reduction via Cherenkov muon veto, and an innovative system for gas storage, liquefaction and purification.
In my talk I will explain the technology behind XENON100, analysis routine and science results, including spin-independent and spin-independent WIMP interactions, and more recent searches for axions and axion-like particles, as well as data interpretation in terms of luminous and mirror dark matter, and the annual modulation analysis of the electronic recoil spectrum. The technological advances and status of the construction of the XENON1T experiment will be also presented.
Primary author
Alexander Kish
(Physik-Institut UZH)
