WIMP Dark Matter Search using a 3.1 Tonne-Year Exposure of the XENONnT Experiment

TL;DR

This paper reports a search for WIMP dark matter using the XENONnT detector with a 3.1 tonne-year exposure, setting new upper limits on WIMP-nucleon interactions and improving sensitivity over previous results.

Contribution

The study presents the first combined analysis of two science campaigns of XENONnT, achieving improved sensitivity and setting new upper limits on WIMP interactions.

Findings

No significant excess of nuclear recoil events was observed.

Established new upper limits on WIMP-nucleon cross section for masses above 10 GeV/c^2.

Improved sensitivity by a factor of up to 1.8 compared to previous XENONnT results.

Abstract

We report on a search for weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter (DM) via elastic DM-xenon-nucleus interactions in the XENONnT experiment. We combine datasets from the first and second science campaigns resulting in a total exposure of 3.1 tonne-years. In a blind analysis of nuclear recoil events with energies above $3.8\,\mathrm{keV_{NR}}$, we find no significant excess above background. We set new upper limits on the spin-independent WIMP-nucleon scattering cross section for WIMP masses above $10\,\mathrm{GeV}/c^2$ with a minimum of $1.7\,\times\,10^{-47}\,\mathrm{cm^2}$ at $90\,\%$ confidence level for a WIMP mass of $30\,\mathrm{GeV}/c^2$. We achieve a best median sensitivity of $1.4\,\times\,10^{-47}\,\mathrm{cm^2}$ for a $41\,\mathrm{GeV}/c^2$ WIMP. Compared to the result from the first XENONnT science dataset, we improve our sensitivity by a factor of up to 1.8.