Scientific Publications

Neutron-induced nuclear recoil background is critical to the dark matter searches in the PandaX-4T liquid xenon experiment. This paper studies the feature of neutron background in liquid xenon and evaluates their contribution in the single scattering nuclear recoil events through three methods. The first method is fully Monte Carlo simulation based. The last two are data-driven methods that also use the multiple scattering signals and high energy signals in the data, respectively. In the PandaX-4T commissioning data with an exposure of 0.63 tonne⋅year, all these methods give a consistent result that there are 1.15±0.57 neutron-induced background in dark matter signal region within an approximated nuclear recoil energy window between 5 and 100 keV.

In the two-component Majorana dark matter model, one dark matter particle can scatter off the target nuclei, and turn into a slightly heavier component. In the framework of a simplified model with a vector boson mediator, both the tree-level and loop-level processes contribute to the signal in direct detection experiment. In this paper, we report the search results for such dark matter from PandaX-II experiment, using total data of the full 100.7 tonne⋅day exposure. No significant excess is observed, so strong constraints on the combined parameter space of mediator mass and dark matter mass are derived. With the complementary search results from collider experiments, a large range of parameter space can be excluded.

We report a novel search for the cosmic-ray boosted dark matter using the 100 tonne · day full dataset of the PandaX-II detector located at the China Jinping Underground Laboratory. With the extra energy gained from the cosmic rays, sub-GeV dark matter particles can produce visible recoil signals in the detector. The diurnal modulations in rate and energy spectrum are utilized to further enhance the signal sensitivity. Our result excludes the dark matter–nucleon elastic scattering cross section between 10⁻³¹ and 10⁻²⁸ cm² for dark matter masses from 0.1 MeV/c² to 0.1 GeV/c², with a large parameter space previously unexplored by experimental collaborations.

We report the first dark matter search results using the commissioning data from PandaX-4T. Using a time projection chamber with 3.7-tonne of liquid xenon target and an exposure of 0.63~tonne⋅year, 1058 candidate events are identified within an approximate electron equivalent energy window between 1 and 30 $keV$. No significant excess over background is observed. Our data set a stringent limit to the dark matter-nucleon spin-independent interactions, with a lowest excluded cross section (90% C.L.) of $3.3 \times 10^{−47}cm^2$ at a dark matter mass of 30 $GeV/c^2$.

${}^{83m}Kr$ with a short lifetime is an ideal calibration source for liquid xenon or liquid argon detector. The ${}^{83m}Kr$ isomer can be generated through the decay of ${}^{83}Rb$ isotope, and ${}^{83}Rb$ is usually produced by proton beams bombarding natural krypton atoms. In this paper, we report a successful production of ${}^{83}Rb$/$ {}^{83m}Kr$ with 3.4 MeV proton beam energy and measure the production rate with such low proton energy for the first time. Another production attempt was performed with newly available 20 MeV proton beam in China, the production rate is consistent with our expectation. The produced ${}^{83m}Kr$ source has been successfully injected into PandaX-II liquid xenon detector and yielded enough statistics for detector calibration.

The dual-phase xenon detector is one of the most sensitive detectors for dark matter direct detection, where the energy deposition of incoming particles can be converted into light and electrons through xenon excitation and ionization. The detector response to signal energy deposition varies significantly with the electric field in liquid xenon . We study the detector light yield and its dependence on the electric field in PandaX-II dual-phase detector containing 580 kg liquid xenon in the sensitive volume. From measurement, the light yield at electric field from 0 V/cm to 317 V/cm is obtained for energy deposition up to 236 keV.

Self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) is a leading candidate proposed to solve discrepancies between predictions of the prevailing cold dark matter theory and observations of galaxies. Many SIDM models predict the existence of a light force carrier that mediates strong dark matter self-interactions. If the mediator couples to the standard model particles, it could produce characteristic signals in dark matter direct detection experiments. We report searches for signals of SIDM models with a light mediator using the full dataset of the PandaX-II experiment, basing on a total exposure of 132 tonne-days. No significant excess over background is found, and our likelihood analysis leads to a strong upper limit on the dark matter-nucleon coupling strength. We further combine the PandaX-II constraints and those from observations of the light element abundances in the early universe, and show that direct detection and cosmological probes can provide complementary constraints on dark matter models with a light mediator.

We report constraints on light dark matter through its interactions with shell electrons in the PandaX-II liquid xenon detector with a total 46.9 tonnes⋅day exposure. To effectively search for these very low energy electron recoils, ionization-only signals are selected from the data. 1821 candidates are identified within an ionization signal range between 50 and 75 photoelectrons, corresponding to a mean electronic recoil energy from 0.08 to 0.15 $keV$. The 90% C.L. exclusion limit on the scattering cross section between the dark matter and electron is calculated with systematic uncertainties properly taken into account. Under the assumption of point interaction, we provide the world’s most stringent limit within the dark matter mass range from 15 to 30 $MeV/c^2$, with the corresponding cross section from $2.5 \times 10^{-37}$ to $3.1 \times 10^{−38} cm^2$.

We report the dark matter search results using the full 132 ton⋅day exposure of the PandaX-II experiment, including all data from March 2016 to August 2018. No significant excess of events were identified above the expected background. Upper limits are set on the spin-independent dark matter-nucleon interactions. The lowest 90% confidence level exclusion on the spin-independent cross section is $2.0 \times 10^{−46} cm^{2}$ at a WIMP mass of 15 $GeV / c^{2}$.

We report a search for new physics signals using the low energy electron recoil events in the complete data set from PandaX-II, in light of the recent event excess reported by XENON1T. The data correspond to a total exposure of 100.7 ton-day with liquid xenon. With robust estimates of the dominant background spectra, we perform sensitive searches on solar axions and neutrinos with enhanced magnetic moment. We find that the axion-electron coupling $g_{Ae} \lt 4.6\times 10^{-12}$ for an axion mass less than $\rm 0.1~keV/c^2$ and the neutrino magnetic moment $μ_ν \lt 3.2\times 10^{-11}μ_{B}$ at 90% confidence level. The observed excess from XENON1T is within our experimental constraints.

In dark matter direct detection experiments, neutron is a serious source of background, which can mimic the dark matter-nucleus scattering signals. In this paper, we present an improved evaluation of the neutron background in the PandaX-II dark matter experiment by a novel approach. Instead of fully relying on the Monte Carlo simulation, the overall neutron background is determined from the neutron-induced high energy signals in the data. In addition, the probability of producing a dark-matter-like background per neutron is evaluated with a complete Monte Carlo generator, where the correlated emission of neutron(s) and $\gamma$(s) in the ($\alpha$, n) reactions and spontaneous fissions is taken into consideration. With this method, the neutron backgrounds in the Run 9 (26-ton-day) and Run 10 (28-ton-day) data sets of PandaX-II are estimated to be 0.66±0.24 and 0.47±0.25 events, respectively.

We report the Neutrino-less Double Beta Decay (NLDBD) search results from PandaX-II dual-phase liquid xenon time projection chamber. The total live time used in this analysis is 403.1 days from June 2016 to August 2018. With NLDBD-optimized event selection criteria, we obtain a fiducial mass of 219 kg of natural xenon. The accumulated xenon exposure is 242 kg $\cdotp$ yr, or equivalently 22.2 kg $\cdotp$ yr of ${}^{136}Xe$ exposure. At the region around ${}^{136}Xe$ decay Q-value of 2458 keV, the energy resolution of PandaX-II is 4.2%. We find no evidence of NLDBD in PandaX-II and establish a lower limit for decay half-life of 2.1$\times 10^{23}$ yr at the 90% confidence level, which corresponds to an effective Majorana neutrino mass $m_{\beta \beta}\lt$ (1.4 - 3.7) eV. This is the first NLDBD result reported from a dual-phase xenon experiment.

The PandaX-4T experiment, a 4-ton scale dark matter direct detection experiment, is being planned at the China Jinping Un- derground Laboratory. In this paper we present a simulation study of the expected background in this experiment. In a 2.8-ton fiducial mass and the signal region between 1-10 keV electron equivalent energy, the total electron recoil background is found to be $4.9 \times 10^{5} kg^{-1}d^{-1}keV^{-1}$. The nuclear recoil background in the same region is $2.8 \times 10^{-7} kg^{-1}d^{-1}keV^{-1}$. With an exposure of 5.6 ton-years, the sensitivity of PandaX-4T could reach a minimum spin-independent dark matter-nucleon cross section of $6 \times 10^{-48}cm^{2}$ at a dark matter mass of 40 $GeV/c^{2}$.

We search for nuclear recoil signals of dark matter models with a light mediator in PandaX-II, a direct detection experiment in the China Jinping underground laboratory. Using data collected in 2016 and 2017 runs, corresponding to a total exposure of 54 ton day, we set upper limits on the zero-momentum dark matter-nucleon cross section. These limits have a strong dependence on the mediator mass when it is comparable to or below the typical momentum transfer. We apply our results to constrain self-interacting dark matter models with a light mediator mixing with standard model particles, and set strong limits on the model parameter space for the dark matter mass ranging from 5 GeV to 10 TeV.

We present PandaX-II constraints on candidate WIMP-nucleon effective interactions involving the nucleon or WIMP spin, including, in addition to standard axial spin-dependent (SD) scattering, various couplings among vector and axial currents, magnetic and electric dipole moments, and tensor interactions. The data set corresponding to a total exposure of 54-ton-days is reanalyzed to determine constraints as a function of the WIMP mass and isospin coupling. We obtain WIMP-nucleon cross section bounds of $1.6\times 10^{-41}cm^2$ and $9.0\times10^{-42}cm^2$ (90% c.l.) for neutron-only SD and tensor coupling, respectively, for a mass $M_{WIMP} ∼ 40 GeV/c^2$. The SD limits are the best currently available for $M_{WIMP} > 40 GeV/c^2$. We show that PandaX-II has reached a sensitivity sufficient to probe a variety of other candidate spin-dependent interactions at the weak scale.

We report here the results of searching for inelastic scattering of dark matter (initial and final state dark matter particles differ by a small mass splitting) with a nucleon for the first 79.6 days of PandaX-II data (Run 9). We set the upper limits for the spin independent weakly interactive massive particle–nucleon scattering cross section up to a mass splitting of $300  keV/c^{2}$ at two benchmark dark matter masses of 1 and $10  TeV/c^{2}$.

We report new searches for solar axions and galactic axionlike dark matter particles, using the first low-background data from the PandaX-II experiment at China Jinping Underground Laboratory, corresponding to a total exposure of about $2.7×10^{4}$  kg day. No solar axion or galactic axionlike dark matter particle candidate has been identified. The upper limit on the axion-electron coupling ($g_{Ae}$) from the solar flux is found to be about $4.35×10^{−12}$ in the mass range from $10^{-5}$ to $1 keV/c^{2}$ with 90% confidence level, similar to the recent LUX result. We also report a new best limit from the ${}^{57}Fe$ deexcitation. On the other hand, the upper limit from the galactic axions is on the order of $10^{-13}$ in the mass range from 1 to $10 keV/c^{2}$ with 90% confidence level, slightly improved compared with the LUX.

We report a new search for weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) using the combined low background data sets acquired in 2016 and 2017 from the PandaX-II experiment in China. The latest data set contains a new exposure of 77.1 live days, with the background reduced to a level of $0.8×10^{-3} evt/kg/day$, improved by a factor of 2.5 in comparison to the previous run in 2016. No excess events are found above the expected background. With a total exposure of $5.4×10^{4}kg day$, the most stringent upper limit on the spin-independent WIMP-nucleon cross section is set for a WIMP with mass larger than $100 GeV/c^{2}$, with the lowest 90% C.L. exclusion at $8.6×10^{-47}cm^{2}$ at $40 GeV/c^{2}$.

We report on the first dark-matter (DM) search results from PandaX-I, a low threshold dual-phase xenon experiment operating at the China JinPing Underground Laboratory. In the 37-kg liquid xenon target with 17.4 live-days of exposure, no DM particle candidate event was found. This result sets a stringent limit for low-mass DM particles and disfavors the interpretation of previously-reported positive experimental results. The minimum upper limit, $3.7 × 10^{-44}cm^{2}$, for the spin-independent isoscalar DM-particle-nucleon scattering cross section is obtained at a DM-particle mass of $49GeV/c^{2}$ at 90% confidence level.

New constraints are presented on the spin-dependent weakly-interacting-massive-particle-(WIMP-)nucleon interaction from the PandaX-II experiment, using a data set corresponding to a total exposure of $3.3×10^{4}kg day$. Assuming a standard axial-vector spin-dependent WIMP interaction with ${}^{129}Xe$ and ${}^{131}Xe$ nuclei, the most stringent upper limits on WIMP-neutron cross sections for WIMPs with masses above $10 GeV/c^{2}$ are set in all dark matter direct detection experiments. The minimum upper limit of $4.1×10^{-41}cm^{2}$ at 90% confidence level is obtained for a WIMP mass of $40 GeV/c^{2}$. This represents more than a factor of 2 improvement on the best available limits at this and higher masses. These improved cross-section limits provide more stringent constraints on the effective WIMP-proton and WIMP-neutron couplings.

We discuss an in-situ evaluation of the ${}^{85}Kr$, ${}^{222}Rn$, and ${}^{220}Rn$ background in PandaX-I, a 120-kg liquid xenon dark matter direct detection experiment. Combining with a simulation, their contributions to the low energy electron-recoil background in the dark matter search region are obtained.

We report the weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter search results using the first physics-run data of the PandaX-II 500 kg liquid xenon dual-phase time-projection chamber, operating at the China JinPing underground laboratory. No dark matter candidate is identified above background. In combination with the data set during the commissioning run, with a total exposure of $3.3×10^{4} kg day$, the most stringent limit to the spin-independent interaction between the ordinary and WIMP dark matter is set for a range of dark matter mass between $5$ and $1000 GeV/c^{2}$. The best upper limit on the scattering cross section is found $2.5×10^{-46}cm^{2}$ for the WIMP mass $40 GeV/c^{2}$ at 90% confidence level.

We report the results of a weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter search using the full 80.1 live-day exposure of the first stage of the PandaX experiment (PandaX-I) located in the China Jin-Ping Underground Laboratory. The PandaX-I detector has been optimized for detecting low-mass WIMPs, achieving a photon detection efficiency of 9.6%. With a fiducial liquid xenon target mass of 54.0 kg, no significant excess events were found above the expected background. A profile likelihood ratio analysis confirms our earlier finding that the PandaX-I data disfavor all positive low-mass WIMP signals reported in the literature under standard assumptions. A stringent bound on a low-mass WIMP is set at a WIMP mass below $10  GeV/c^{2}$, demonstrating that liquid xenon detectors can be competitive for low-mass WIMP searches.