The Large Underground Xenon (LUX) Experiment

TL;DR

The LUX experiment employs a dual-phase xenon detector underground to search for WIMPs, aiming to detect or exclude dark matter particles with very low interaction cross sections, by minimizing background events over extended operation.

Contribution

This paper details the design and construction of the large underground xenon detector specifically built for dark matter WIMP searches.

Findings

Designed to detect WIMPs with cross section of 2×10^{-46} cm^2

Achieved background goal of fewer than 1 event in 300 days

Constructed a 370-kg dual-phase xenon detector

Abstract

The Large Underground Xenon (LUX) collaboration has designed and constructed a dual-phase xenon detector, in order to conduct a search for Weakly Interacting Massive Particles(WIMPs), a leading dark matter candidate. The goal of the LUX detector is to clearly detect (or exclude) WIMPS with a spin independent cross section per nucleon of $2\times 10^{-46}$ cm$^{2}$, equivalent to $\sim$1 event/100 kg/month in the inner 100-kg fiducial volume (FV) of the 370-kg detector. The overall background goals are set to have $<$1 background events characterized as possible WIMPs in the FV in 300 days of running. This paper describes the design and construction of the LUX detector.