An Effective Field Theory Analysis of the First LUX Dark Matter Search
Creators: name: Akerib, D. S.
name: Alsum, S.
name: Araújo, H. M.
name: Bai, X.
name: Balajthy, J.
name: Baxter, A.
name: Bernard, E. P.
name: Bernstein, A.
name: Biesiadzinski, T. P.
name: Boulton, E. M.
name: Boxer, B.
name: Brás, P.
name: Burdin, S.
name: Byram, D.
name: Carmona-Benitez, M. C.
name: Chan, C.
name: Cutter, J. E.
name: de Viveiros, L.
name: Druszkiewicz, E.
name: Fan, A.
name: Fiorucci, S.
name: Gaitskell, R. J.
name: Ghag, C.
name: Gilchriese, M. G. D.
name: Gwilliam, C.
name: Hall, C. R.
name: Haselschwardt, S. J.
name: Hertel, S. A.
name: Hogan, D. P.
name: Horn, M.
name: Huang, D. Q.
name: Ignarra, C. M.
name: Jacobsen, R. G.
name: Jahangir, O.
name: Ji, W.
name: Kamdin, K.
name: Kazkaz, K.
name: Khaitan, D.
name: Korolkova, E. V.
name: Kravitz, S.
name: Kudryavtsev, V. A.
name: Larsen, N. A.
name: Leason, E.
name: Lenardo, B. G.
name: Lesko, K. T.
name: Liao, J.
name: Lin, J.
name: Lindote, A.
name: Lopes, M. I.
name: Manalaysay, A.
name: Mannino, R. L.
name: Marangou, N.
name: McKinsey, D. N.
name: Mei, D. -M.
name: Moongweluwan, M.
name: Morad, J. A.
name: Murphy, A. St. J.
name: Naylor, A.
name: Nehrkorn, C.
name: Nelson, H. N.
name: Neves, F.
name: Nilima, A.
name: Oliver-Mallory, K. C.
name: Palladino, K. J.
name: Pease, E. K.
name: Riffard, Q.
name: Rischbieter, G. R. C.
name: Rhyne, C.
name: Rossiter, P.
name: Shaw, S.
name: Shutt, T. A.
name: Silva, C.
name: Solmaz, M.
name: Solovov, V. N.
name: Sorensen, P.
name: Sumner, T. J.
name: Szydagis, M.
name: Taylor, D. J.
name: Taylor, R.
name: Taylor, W. C.
name: Tennyson, B. P.
name: Terman, P. A.
name: Tiedt, D. R.
name: To, W. H.
name: Tvrznikova, L.
name: Utku, U.
name: Uvarov, S.
name: Vacheret, A.
name: Velan, V.
name: Webb, R. C.
name: White, J. T.
name: Whitis, T. J.
name: Witherell, M. S.
name: Wolfs, F. L. H.
name: Woodward, D.
name: Xu, J.
name: Zhang, C.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2020
Subjects: subject: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: The Large Underground Xenon (LUX) dark matter search was a 250-kg active mass dual-phase time projection chamber that operated by detecting light and ionization signals from particles incident on a xenon target. In December 2015, LUX reported a minimum 90% upper C.L. of 6e-46 cm^2 on the spin-independent WIMP-nucleon elastic scattering cross section based on a 1.4e4 kg*day exposure in its first science run. Tension between experiments and the absence of a definitive positive detection suggest it would be prudent to search for WIMPs outside the standard spin-independent/spin-dependent paradigm. Recent theoretical work has identified a complete basis of 14 independent effective field theory (EFT) operators to describe WIMP-nucleon interactions. In addition to spin-independent and spin-dependent nuclear responses, these operators can produce novel responses such as angular-momentum-dependent and spin-orbit couplings. Here we report on a search for all 14 of these EFT couplings with data from LUX's first science run. Limits are placed on each coupling as a function of WIMP mass.
description: 11 pages, 6 figures