XLZD and the Search for WIMP Dark Matter

Speaker: Dan Akerib and Tom Shutt (KIPAC) In Person and zoom

Zoom Link
SLAC Colloquium website

The nature of dark matter is one of the most profound unanswered questions in physics. One of the best motivated explanations is that it is composed of particles with mass and couplings tied to the electroweak scale of particle physics, as these are naturally produced as dark matter during thermal freeze out in the big bang.  Searches for these weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs, have not yet detected such particles, despite enormous increases in sensitivity, in particular by experiments using liquid xenon time projection chambers.  We have formed a new collaboration, XLZD, which is developing the definitive experiment to search for WIMP dark matter down to the systematic limit imposed by astrophysical neutrinos.  This experiment will combine and extend the best of the technologies of the 10-ton scale XENONnT and LUX-ZEPLIN experiments, to field a 100-ton scale instrument.  XLZD will also competitively search for the neutrinoless double-beta decay of xenon-136 as well as other neutrino phenomena.