Laboratory experiments searching for galactic dark matter particles scattering off nuclei have so far not been able to establish a discovery. We use data from the XENON100 experiment to search for ...dark matter interacting with electrons. With no evidence for a signal above the low background of our experiment, we exclude a variety of representative dark matter models that would induce electronic recoils. For axial-vector couplings to electrons, we exclude cross sections above 6 × 10–35 cm2 for particle masses of mx = 2 GeV/c2. Independent of the dark matter halo, we exclude leptophilic models as an explanation for the long-standing DAMA/LIBRA signal, such as couplings to electrons through axial-vector interactions at a 4.4σ. confidence level, mirror dark matter at 3.6σ, and luminous dark matter at 4.6σ.
We have built a RICH detector prototype consisting of a liquid C6F14 radiator and six triple Thick Gaseous Electron Multipliers (TGEMs), each of them having an active area of 10×10cm2. One triple ...TGEM has been placed behind the liquid radiator in order to detect the beam particles, whereas the other five have been positioned around the central one at a distance to collect the Cherenkov photons. The upstream electrode of each of the TGEM stacks has been coated with a 0.4μm thick CsI layer.
In this paper, we will present the results from a series of laboratory tests performed with this prototype carried out using UV light, 6keV photons from 55Fe and electrons from 90Sr as well as recent results of tests with a beam of charged pions where for the first time Cherenkov Ring images have been successfully recorded with TGEM photodetectors. The achieved results prove the feasibility of building Cherenkov detector based on CsI coated TGEMs.
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 keV_{nr} 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×keV_{ee}), the lowest ever achieved in such a dark matter detector. A profile likelihood analysis shows that the data are consistent with the background-only hypothesis. We derive the most stringent exclusion limits on the spin-independent WIMP-nucleon interaction cross section for WIMP masses above 10 GeV/c^{2}, with a minimum of 7.7×10^{-47} cm^{2} for 35-GeV/c^{2} WIMPs at 90% C.L.
The VHMPID RICH upgrade project for ALICE at LHC Di Mauro, A.; Agocs, A.; Alfaro, R. ...
Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment,
05/2011, Volume:
639, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
RHIC results have shown the importance of high momentum particles as hard probes and the need for particle identification (PID) in a very large momentum range. A Very High Momentum PID (VHMPID) ...detector has been proposed as upgrade of ALICE to extend the track-by-track identification capabilities for charged hadrons from the present 5
GeV/c limit to the momentum range 10–30
GeV/c. The VHMPID detector is a focusing RICH using C
4F
10 gaseous radiator coupled to a CsI-based photon detector. Detector design studies, achievable Cherenkov angle resolution, expected performance and high momentum triggering will be discussed.
The XENON1T dark matter experiment Aalbers, J.; Alfonsi, M.; Amaro, F. D. ...
European physical journal. C, Particles and fields,
12/2017, Volume:
77, Issue:
12
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The XENON1T experiment at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) is the first WIMP dark matter detector operating with a liquid xenon target mass above the ton-scale. Out of its 3.2 t liquid ...xenon inventory, 2.0 t constitute the active target of the dual-phase time projection chamber. The scintillation and ionization signals from particle interactions are detected with low-background photomultipliers. This article describes the XENON1T instrument and its subsystems as well as strategies to achieve an unprecedented low background level. First results on the detector response and the performance of the subsystems are also presented.
We perform a low-mass dark matter search using an exposure of 30 kg×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 the spin-independent WIMP-nucleon cross section that excludes WIMPs with a mass of 6 GeV/c2 above 1.4×10−41 cm2 at 90% confidence level.
Very high momentum particle identification in ALICE at the LHC Agocs, A.; Alfaro, R.; Barnafoldi, G.G. ...
Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment,
05/2010, Volume:
617, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
We propose to construct and install a limited acceptance detector to identify hadrons (pions, K, p) up to 30
GeV/
c on a track-by-track basis in space available in ALICE. Details and PID performance ...simulation results will be presented for two possible options, including a high transverse momentum (
p
T
) trigger for this detector. The first option is a RICH design with a
C
4
F
10
gas UV-photon radiator, UV-mirror, quartz window and pad-readout. This design requires additional tracking detectors to enable high
p
T
triggering. A second option is a combination of three detectors: a RICH with
CF
4
gas both as a UV-photon radiator and as a gas amplification medium (a windowless approach); and a threshold Cherenkov detector (
C
4
F
10
) with a quartz window and pad readout. The response for minimum ionizing particles (MIP) and UV-photons in these detectors can be well separated. With an additional tracking detector this design will also provide high
p
T
triggering. The simulation includes UV-photon production due to
CF
4
scintillation.
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