Maria Elena Monzani (Columbia University)  

The XENON Dark Matter Experiment and Its Future


Abstract:
The XENON experiment aims to the direct detection of Dark Matter, using
liquid Xenon as the target material. The direct detection of Dark Matter
particles is based on their elastic scattering off nuclei of the target
Xenon atoms. The detector is a two-phase (liquid/gas) time projection
chamber (TPC) which measures simultaneously the charge and light signals
produced by a particle interaction in the liquid. The XENON science
program just finished testing the 10 kg implementation of the detector
(XENON10), which is going to be followed by a 100 kg module. The XENON10
detector was installed at the Gran Sasso Underground Laboratory in Italy
in March 2006, and has been taking dark matter data from August 2006 to
January 2007. In April 2007 The XENON collaboration released the results
of this first science run, featuring the best limit for spin independent
WIMP detection worldwide. I will discuss the main features of the
XENON10 detector, along with its first science result and the expected
developments for the near future.