Lukas Hehn (KIT)

The EDELWEISS-III search for low-mass WIMPs

The EDELWEISS-III experiment, located in the LSM underground laboratory of Modane (France), is designed for the direct detection of WIMP dark matter via the elastic scattering on nuclei in cryogenic bolometers. These 800g germanium mono-crystals are equipped each with 2 NTD sensors as well as ring electrodes allowing the simultaneous measurement of heat and ionization signals. This technique allows to discriminate on an event-by-event basis between electron recoils from various backgrounds and nuclear recoils from a potential WIMP signal. With improved electronics and a new detector design, a 10-month search for so-called low-mass WIMPs was performed in 2015, reaching mass sensitivities down to 4 GeV/c². In this talk I will present the recent results of this search, obtained with two different analysis strategies. I will give an outlook on the perspectives of the EDELWEISS-III experiment.