Status of the XENON Dark Matter Search Experiment

Description
ABSTRACT The XENON experiment aims to detect directly the elusive dark matter in the universe. The particles that may sustain the existence of dark matter are called weakly interactive massive particles (WIMPs) and the existing models indicate interaction rates that can be as low as 1 WIMP event/ton Xe/year, with deposited energies not surpassing more than a few dozen keV. XENON100, building upon the success of the XENON10 prototype, represents the current state-of-the-art in WIMP search detectors. With a realistic discovery potential, XENON100 has reached last July the expected ultimate sensitivity of 2×10^-45 cm^2 after a 225 live-day exposure, and continues to accrue data at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) in Italy. With a phased approach of gradual increase in target mass while reducing the background, the XENON program ultimate goal is to detect WIMPs in a detector with 1 ton fiducial mass of Xe, with sensitivity to spin-independent WIMP-nucleon cross sections better than 2x10^-47 cm^2, a sensitivity ideally matched for WIMPs discovery.