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LZ Publishes First Science Results!

The LZ collaboration has published first science results from the experiment located at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF). The article, selected as an Editor’s Recommendation in Physical Review Letters in July 2023, is available here.  A recording of the presentation of these first results from SURF in 2022 can be viewed on YouTube here. The slides from the presentation as well as supplemental material referenced in the paper can be found here. Supplemental material is also available on HEPData.

Welcome to the LZ dark matter experiment’s webpage!


LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) is a next generation dark matter experiment, selected by the US Department of Energy (DOE) as one of the three ‘G2’ (for Generation 2) dark matter experiments. Located at the 4850′ level of the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, SD, the experiment utilizes a two-phase time projection chamber (TPC), containing seven active tonnes of liquid xenon, to search for dark matter particles. Auxiliary veto detectors, including a liquid scintillator outer detector, improve rejection of unwanted background events in the central region of the detector. LZ has been designed to improve on the sensitivity of the prior generation of experiment by a factor of 50 or more. More details on the construction of the LZ detector can be found here, and the projected sensitivity of the experiment is described here.

The LZ collaboration consists of about 250 scientists in 39 institutions in the U.S., U.K., Portugal, Switzerland, South Korea and Australia. The name LZ stems from the merger of two previous dark matter detection experiments: LUX (Large Underground Xenon) and ZEPLIN (ZonEd Proportional scintillation in LIquid Noble gases).

The LZ project received CD-4 approval for completion in August, 2020.

With its first science run LZ has delivered the world-leading sensitivity in the search for dark matter in form of galactic WIMPs from only 6% of its planned exposure. With unprecedented potential for discovery, the LZ experiment is presently accruing science data for a longer exposure that sweeps theoretically very well motivated but completely uncharted electroweak parameter space that could deliver a the world’s first observation of dark matter in the next few years. 

Contacts

Spokesperson: Chamkaur Ghag, University College London, c.ghag@ucl.ac.uk
Operations Manager: Simon Fiorucci, LBL, sfiorucci@lbl.gov

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