LUX (experiment)
This article was accepted into the corpus but its outbound wikilinks were never NER-processed — typical at the deepest BFS hop or when the run's entity cap was reached. No expansion funnel to show.
| LUX (experiment) | |
|---|---|
.png) | |
| Name | LUX |
| Full name | Large Underground Xenon experiment |
| Location | Sanford Underground Research Facility, Lead, South Dakota |
| Operator | South Dakota School of Mines and Technology; Case Western Reserve University; Brown University; University of California, Berkeley; University of California, Davis; Yale University; University of Chicago; SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory; Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory |
| Established | 2009 |
| Decommissioned | 2016 |
| Detector type | Dual-phase liquid xenon time projection chamber |
| Target | Weakly Interacting Massive Particles |
LUX (experiment) The Large Underground Xenon experiment was a direct-detection dark matter search that operated a dual-phase liquid xenon time projection chamber to seek interactions of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles in the mass range probed by terrestrial detectors. The collaboration combined expertise from national laboratories and universities including SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Yale University, and University of California, Berkeley and used facilities at the Sanford Underground Research Facility beneath the Homestake Mine in Lead, South Dakota. LUX set leading limits on spin-independent WIMP-nucleon cross sections before handing the field to successor projects at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.
Introduction
LUX was conceived during an era of active competition among experiments such as XENON100, CDMS II, CoGeNT, DAMA/NaI and DAMA/LIBRA, ZEPLIN-III, CRESST-II, and PICASSO to confirm or refute hints of low-mass WIMPs reported by collaborations including CoGeNT and DAMA/NaI and DAMA/LIBRA. Funded and supported by agencies and institutions like the U.S. Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and multiple university groups from Brown University to University of Maryland, College Park, LUX aimed to combine large target mass with low backgrounds inspired by designs from predecessors ZEPLIN-II and successors such as XENON1T. The collaboration emphasized scalable technology, drawing on developments at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and prototype tests at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Experimental Design and Detector
The detector was a dual-phase time projection chamber using about 370 kilograms of liquid xenon with an active region of roughly 250 kilograms, following concepts developed by ZEPLIN-III, XENON100, and LUX-ZEPLIN R&D. Photomultiplier tubes supplied by vendors with heritage in Super-Kamiokande and SNO instruments were arranged in top and bottom arrays to detect prompt scintillation (S1) and proportional electroluminescence (S2) signals, enabling three-dimensional position reconstruction similar to techniques used in DEAP-3600 and DarkSide-50. High-voltage and field-shaping systems echoed engineering from EXO-200 and NEXT. Cryogenics and xenon purification systems were informed by operations at XENON10 and facilities at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Location and Infrastructure
LUX operated at the 4850-foot level of the Homestake Mine within the Sanford Underground Research Facility, sharing underground infrastructure lineage with historic projects such as the Homestake Experiment and later experiments like MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR. The cavern hosted a water tank providing passive shielding and a muon veto inspired by concepts used in Super-Kamiokande and SNO. Surface assembly and testing utilized laboratories at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and collaborating universities including University of Wisconsin–Madison and University of Michigan.
Calibration and Backgrounds
Calibration campaigns used sealed gamma-ray sources, neutron generators, and internal gaseous injections informed by experiences at XENON100, DEAP-3600, and DAMA/NaI and DAMA/LIBRA to map detector response and discrimination between nuclear recoils and electronic recoils. Background control included material assays at facilities like Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory assaying programs and low-background counting at universities including University of South Dakota and University of California, Davis, leveraging techniques from MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR and CUORE. Radon mitigation drew on methods developed for Borexino and SNO+, while cosmogenic activation considerations paralleled work at CDMS II and SuperCDMS.
Data Analysis and Results
Data analysis pipelines incorporated methods from XENON100, CDMS II, and ZEPLIN-III to reconstruct S1 and S2 signals, apply position-dependent corrections, and perform statistical inference following frequentist and Bayesian approaches used in Fermi Large Area Telescope and Planck (spacecraft) cosmology analyses. LUX published null results that set world-leading upper limits on spin-independent WIMP-nucleon cross sections across a wide mass range, constraining interpretations of signals claimed by CoGeNT and DAMA/NaI and DAMA/LIBRA and consonant with limits from XENON100 and PandaX. The experiment reported results in high-profile venues alongside global fits from collaborations such as Particle Data Group meta-analyses and influenced parameter-space plots used by ATLAS and CMS when comparing collider constraints with direct detection.
Upgrades and Successor Experiments
LUX operations concluded as the collaboration merged developments into the larger LUX-ZEPLIN program, a multi-institutional successor sited at the Sanford Underground Research Facility with involvement from Imperial College London, University of Oxford, STFC, and many partners. Technologies matured in LUX—such as photomultiplier deployment, xenon handling, and background control—were inherited by LUX-ZEPLIN and informed alternative approaches at XENON1T, PandaX-II, and DARWIN (particle detector proposal) planning efforts. Some LUX hardware and expertise were repurposed in tests with groups from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory for neutrinoless double-beta decay and neutrino observatory concepts like nEXO.
Scientific Impact and Publications
LUX produced influential publications that appeared in journals and conference proceedings alongside contributions to conferences like International Conference on High Energy Physics and Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics (Neutrino) meetings. Its limits were incorporated into global dark matter reviews by the Particle Data Group and informed theoretical model-building in papers from research groups at CERN, Harvard University, Princeton University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Stanford University. The experiment trained students and postdocs who later joined collaborations including XENONnT, SuperCDMS SNOLAB, LUX-ZEPLIN, PandaX-4T, and experimental programs at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.
Category:Dark matter experiments