Adam Wade Bradley
(Case Western Reserve University)
Abstract:
The LUX Dark Matter experiment is a 370-kg two-phase liquid xenon detector deployed in the Davis Campus at the 4850' Level of SURF in Lead, SD, to hunt for WIMP dark matter, a candidate for the majority component of matter in the universe. Commissioned at the end of 2012, the LUX detector achieves stable operation at liquid xenon temperatures through the use of a simple, economical, and powerful thermosyphon cryogenics cooling system. LUX recently completed an unblinded 85-day WIMP hunt where a study of radon-sourced alphas was combined with thorough background measurements and modeling for use in a profile likelihood ratio analysis of the data within a 118-kg fiducial mass of the target xenon. The leading dark matter limit from the first LUX results is presented here.