Abstract

We present results from the direct search for dark matter with the XENON100 detector, installed underground at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso of INFN, Italy. XENON100 is a two-phase time-projection chamber with a 62 kg liquid xenon target. Interaction vertex reconstruction in three dimensions with millimeter precision allows the selection of only the innermost 48 kg as the ultralow background fiducial target. In 100.9 live days of data, acquired between January and June 2010, no evidence for dark matter is found. Three candidate events were observed in the signal region with an expected background of (1.8±0.6) events. This leads to the most stringent limit on dark matter interactions today, excluding spin-independent elastic weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) nucleon scattering cross sections above 7.0×10-45  cm2 for a WIMP mass of 50  GeV/c2 at 90% confidence level.

© 2011 American Physical Society