Limits on spin-dependent WIMP-nucleon cross-sections from the XENON10 experiment

TL;DR

The XENON10 experiment sets new limits on spin-dependent WIMP-nucleon interactions by analyzing 58.6 days of data, excluding certain dark matter candidates like neutralinos and heavy Majorana neutrinos.

Contribution

This work provides the first experimental constraints on spin-dependent WIMP interactions using liquid xenon, expanding the search for dark matter particles.

Findings

Excluded new parameter space for neutralinos.

Ruled out heavy Majorana neutrinos as dark matter candidates.

Improved sensitivity to spin-dependent WIMP interactions.

Abstract

XENON10 is an experiment to directly detect weakly interacting massive particle (WIMPs), which may comprise the bulk of the non-baryonic dark matter in our Universe. We report new results for spin-dependent WIMP-nucleon interactions with 129-Xe and 131-Xe from 58.6 live-days of operation at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS). Based on the non-observation of a WIMP signal in 5.4 kg of fiducial liquid xenon mass, we exclude previously unexplored regions in the theoretically allowed parameter space for neutralinos. We also exclude a heavy Majorana neutrino with a mass in the range of 10 GeV -2 TeV as a dark matter candidate under standard assumptions for its density and distribution in the galactic halo.