Speaker
Description
The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) dark matter experiment consists of 7 active tonnes of liquid xenon sensitive to weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs). Even with extensive radiopurity screening and shielding, such experiments still suffer from gamma-ray and neutron backgrounds from nearby material. Any excess detected in LZ requires a deep understanding of these backgrounds; for this purpose, we have built the Outer Detector (OD). The OD comprises of 17 tonnes of gadolinium-loaded liquid scintillator surrounding the xenon target and can efficiently tag these otherwise problematic particles, providing vital information on the radioactive environment of LZ. The OD is essential to LZ’s sensitivity and greatly increases the available xenon mass for dark matter and rare event searches. I will report on the performance of the Outer Detector in LZ’s first science run.
