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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 twophase 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. (13) 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 to select only the innermost 48 kg as ultra-low 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 a pre-defined 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 WIMP-nucleon scattering cross-sections above 7.0 × 10 −45 cm 2 for a WIMP mass of 50 GeV/c 2 at 90% confidence level.

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The XENON1T experiment is currently in the commissioning phase at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, Italy. In this article we study the experiment's expected sensitivity to the spinindependent WIMP-nucleon interaction cross section, based on Monte Carlo predictions of the electronic and nuclear recoil backgrounds. The total electronic recoil background in 1 tonne fiducial volume and (1, 12) keV electronic recoil equivalent energy region, before applying any selection to discriminate between electronic and nuclear recoils, is (1.80 ± 0.15) • 10(−)(4) (kg•day•keV)(−)(1), mainly due to the decay of (222)Rn daughters inside the xenon target. The nuclear recoil background in the corresponding nuclear recoil equivalent energy region (4, 50) keV, is composed of (0.6 ± 0.1) (t•y)(−)(1) from radiogenic neutrons, (1.8 ± 0.3) • 10(−)(2) (t•y)(−)(1) from coherent scattering of neutrinos, and less than 0.01 (t•y)(−)(1) from muon-induced neutrons. The sensitivity of XENON1T is calculated with the Profile Likelihood Ratio method, after converting the deposited energy of electronic and nuclear recoils into the scintillation and ionization signals seen in the detector. We take into account the systematic uncertainties on the photon and electron emission model, and on the estimation of the backgrounds, treated as nuisance parameters. The main contribution comes from the relative scintillation efficiency Script L(eff), which affects both the signal from WIMPs and the nuclear recoil backgrounds. After a 2 y measurement in 1 t fiducial volume, the sensitivity reaches a minimum cross section of 1.6 • 10(−)(47) cm(2) at m() = 50 GeV/c(2).

LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) is a next-generation dark matter direct detection experiment that will operate 4850 feet underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in Lead, South Dakota, USA. Using a two-phase xenon detector with an active mass of 7 tonnes, LZ will search primarily for low-energy interactions with weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), which are hypothesized to make up the dark matter in our galactic halo. In this paper, the projected WIMP sensitivity of LZ is presented based on the latest background estimates and simulations of the detector. For a 1000 live day run using a 5.6-tonne fiducial mass, LZ is projected to exclude at 90% confidence level spin-independent WIMP-nucleon cross sections above 1.4 × 10 −48 cm 2 for a 40 GeV=c 2 mass WIMP. Additionally, a 5σ discovery potential is projected, reaching cross sections below the exclusion limits of recent experiments. For spin-dependent WIMP-neutron(-proton) scattering, a sensitivity of 2.3 × 10 −43 cm 2 (7.1 × 10 −42 cm 2) for a 40 GeV=c 2 mass WIMP is expected. With underground installation well underway, LZ is on track for commissioning at SURF in 2020.