HEP Seminar : Monday 17 February, 2pm, Hicks E39 : LUX: Identification of fake-WIMP events

Title: LUX: Identification of fake-WIMP events

Abstract: The LUX (Large Underground Xenon) experiment is a decommissioned direct detection dark matter search which ran between 2012-16. Located at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in South Dakota, LUX set world leading exclusions in the cross section for interactions between dark matter and matter.

In this talk, Peter Rossiter will begin with an overview of the LUX detector, a summary of its key analyses, and background identification efforts. This will be followed with a description of a particular type of WIMP background, known as a gamma-X event, as well as recent efforts to remove these events from data. This work exploits the use of a Boosted Decision Tree, which has shown significant potential in improving upon previous gamma-X removal efforts.This method provides a template for use in next generation experiments such as LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ), which is due to begin data taking this year.

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