The ZEPLIN-III experiment in the Palmer Underground Laboratory at Boulby uses a 12 kg twophase xenon time projection chamber to search for the weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) that may account for the dark matter of our Galaxy. The detector measures both scintillation and ionisation produced by radiation interacting in the liquid to differentiate between the nuclear recoils expected from WIMPs and the electron recoil background signals down to ∼10 keV nuclear recoil energy. An analysis of 847 kg•days of data acquired between February 27 th 2008 and May 20 th 2008 has excluded a WIMP-nucleon elastic scattering spin-independent cross-section above 8.1 × 10 −8 pb at 60 GeVc −2 with a 90% confidence limit. It has also demonstrated that the two-phase xenon technique is capable of better discrimination between electron and nuclear recoils at low-energy than previously achieved by other xenon-based experiments.

The production of neutrons carrying at least 20% of the proton beam energy (x L > 0.2) in e + p collisions has been studied with the ZEUS detector at HERA for a wide range of Q 2 , the photon virtuality, from photoproduction to deep inelastic scattering. The neutron-tagged cross section, ep → e ′ Xn, is measured relative to the inclusive cross section, ep → e ′ X, thereby reducing the systematic uncertainties. For x L > 0.3, the rate of neutrons in photoproduction is about half of that measured in hadroproduction, which constitutes a clear breaking of factorisation. There is about a 20% rise in the neutron rate between photoproduction and deep inelastic scattering, which may be attributed to absorptive rescattering in the γp system. or 0.64 < x L < 0.82, the rate of neutrons is almost independent of the Bjorken scaling variable x and Q 2 . However, at lower and higher x L values, there is a clear but weak dependence on these variables, thus demonstrating the breaking of limiting fragmentation. The neutron-tagged structure function, F

21 pages, 5 figuresThe EDELWEISS-II collaboration has completed a direct search for WIMP dark matter with an array of ten 400-g cryogenic germanium detectors in operation at the Laboratoire Souterrain de Modane. The combined use of thermal phonon sensors and charge collection electrodes with an interleaved geometry enables the efficient rejection of gamma-induced radioactivity as well as near-surface interactions. A total effective exposure of 384 kg.d has been achieved, mostly coming from fourteen months of continuous operation. Five nuclear recoil candidates are observed above 20 keV, while the estimated background is less than 3.0 events. The result is interpreted in terms of limits on the cross-section of spin-independent interactions of WIMPs and nucleons. A cross-section of 4.4x10^-8 pb is excluded at 90%CL for a WIMP mass of 85 GeV. New constraints are also set on models where the WIMP-nucleon scattering is inelastic

Results are presented from the first underground data run of ZEPLIN-II, a 31 kg two-phase xenon detector developed to observe nuclear recoils from hypothetical weakly interacting massive dark matter particles. Discrimination between nuclear recoils and background electron recoils is afforded by recording both the scintillation and ionisation signals generated within the liquid xenon, with the ratio of these signals being different for the two classes of event. This ratio is calibrated for different incident species using an AmBe neutron source and 60Co γ-ray sources. From our first 31 live days of running ZEPLIN-II, the total exposure following the application of fiducial and stability cuts was 225 kg × days. A background population of radon progeny events was observed in this run, arising from radon emission in the gas purification getters, due to radon daughter ion decays on the surfaces of the walls of the chamber. An acceptance window, defined by the neutron calibration data, of 50% nuclear recoil acceptance between 5 keVee and 20 keVee, had an observed count of 29 events, with a summed expectation of 28.6 ± 4.3 γ-ray and radon progeny induced background events. These figures provide a 90% c.l. upper limit to the number of nuclear recoils of 10.4 events in this acceptance window, which converts to a WIMP nucleon spin-independent cross-section with a minimum of 6.6 × 10-7 pb following the inclusion of an energy-dependent, calibrated, efficiency. A second run is currently underway in which the radon progeny will be eliminated, thereby removing the background population, with a projected sensitivity of 2 × 10-7 pb for similar exposures as the first run

We report experimental upper limits on WIMP-nucleon elastic scattering cross sections from the second science run of ZEPLIN-III at the Boulby Underground Laboratory. A raw fiducial exposure of 1,344 kg·days was accrued over 319 days of continuous operation between June 2010 and May 2011. A total of eight events was observed in the signal acceptance region in the nuclear recoil energy range 7-29 keV, which is compatible with background expectations. This allows the exclusion of the scalar cross-section above 4.8×10 −8 pb near 50 GeV/c 2 WIMP mass with 90% confidence. Combined with data from the first run, this result improves to 3.9×10 −8 pb. The corresponding WIMP-neutron spin-dependent cross-section limit is 8.0×10 −3 pb. The ZEPLIN programme reaches thus its conclusion at Boulby, having deployed and exploited successfully three liquid xenon experiments of increasing reach.