First results from the DarkSide-50 dark matter experiment at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso

• DOI: 10.1016/j.physletb.2015.03.012
• Publication Date: 2015-03-11T07:45:36Z
• Authors: P. Agnes; T. Alexander; A. Alton; K. Arisaka; H.O. Back; B. Baldin; K. Biery; G. Bonfini; M. Bossa; A. Brigatti; J. Brodsky; F. Budano; L. Cadonati; F. Calaprice; N. Canci; A. Candela; H. Cao; M. Cariello; P. Cavalcante; A. Chavarria; A. Chepurnov; A.G. Cocco; L. Crippa; D. D'Angelo; M. D'Incecco; S. Davini; M. De Deo; A. Derbin; A. Devoto; F. Di Eusanio; G. Di Pietro; E. Edkins; A. Empl; A. Fan; G. Fiorillo; K. Fomenko; G. Forster; D. Franco; F. Gabriele; C. Galbiati; A. Goretti; L. Grandi; M. Gromov; M.Y. Guan; Y. Guardincerri; B. Hackett; K. Herner; E.V. Hungerford; Al. Ianni; An. Ianni; C. Jollet; K. Keeter; C. Kendziora; S. Kidner; V. Kobychev; G. Koh; D. Korablev; G. Korga; A. Kurlej; P.X. Li; B. Loer; P. Lombardi; C. Love; L. Ludhova; S. Luitz; Y.Q. Ma; I. Machulin; A. Mandarano; S. Mari; J. Maricic; L. Marini; C.J. Martoff; A. Meregaglia; E. Meroni; P.D. Meyers; R. Milincic; D. Montanari; A. Monte; M. Montuschi; M.E. Monzani; P. Mosteiro; B. Mount; V. Muratova; P. Musico; A. Nelson; S. Odrowski; M. Okounkova; M. Orsini; F. Ortica; L. Pagani; M. Pallavicini; E. Pantic; L. Papp; S. Parmeggiano; R. Parsells; K. Pelczar; N. Pelliccia; S. Perasso; A. Pocar; S. Pordes; D. Pugachev; H. Qian; K. Randle; G. Ranucci; A. Razeto; B. Reinhold; A. Renshaw; A. Romani; B. Rossi; N. Rossi; S.D. Rountree; D. Sablone; P. Saggese; R. Saldanha; W. Sands; S. Sangiorgio; E. Segreto; D. Semenov; E. Shields; M. Skorokhvatov; O. Smirnov; A. Sotnikov; C. Stanford; Y. Suvorov; R. Tartaglia; J. Tatarowicz; G. Testera; A. Tonazzo; E. Unzhakov; R.B. Vogelaar; M. Wada; S. Walker; H. Wang; Y. Wang; A. Watson; S. Westerdale; M. Wojcik; A. Wright; X. Xiang; J. Xu; C.G. Yang; J. Yoo; S. Zavatarelli; A. Zec; C. Zhu; G. Zuzel
• Keywords: Nuclear and High Energy Physics; Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors; Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO); WIMP; QC1-999; low-background detectors; Noble liquid detectors; liquid scintillators; FOS: Physical sciences; Dark matter; Liquid scintillators; Low-background detectors; Noble liquid detectors; WIMP; 01 natural sciences; dark matter; High Energy Physics - Experiment; High Energy Physics - Experiment (hep-ex); Low-background detectors; 0103 physical sciences; Dark matter; Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Dark matter; Liquid scintillators; Low-background detectors; Noble liquid detectors; WIMP; Nuclear and High Energy Physics; Physics; Dark matter WIMP Noble liquid detectors Low-background detectors Liquid scintillators; Instrumentation and Detectors (physics.ins-det); Liquid scintillators; noble liquid detectors; Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics; Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics

We report the first results of DarkSide-50, a direct search for dark matter operating in the underground Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) and searching for the rare nuclear recoils possibly induced by weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs). The dark matter detector is a Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber with a (46.4+-0.7) kg active mass, operated inside a 30 t organic liquid scintillator neutron veto, which is in turn installed at the center of a 1 kt water Cherenkov veto for the residual flux of cosmic rays. We report here the null results of a dark matter search for a (1422+-67) kg d exposure with an atmospheric argon fill. This is the most sensitive dark matter search performed with an argon target, corresponding to a 90% CL upper limit on the WIMP-nucleon spin-independent cross section of 6.1x10^-44 cm^2 for a WIMP mass of 100 GeV/c^2.<br/>26 pages, 7 figures; updated figures and references, notably Fig. 7 has updated CDMSII curve; fixed typos; clarified some language and figures; updated references<br/>