Study of Excess Electronic Recoil Events in XENON1T (eBook)

This thesis summarizes the original analysis work performed by the author on data from XENON1T, a search for dark matter with a ton-size noble liquid detector operated at Gran Sasso Underground Laboratory in Italy. The nature of dark matter is one of the most open and pressing questions of modern physics, and the unique data acquired with this detector allows the exploration and investigation of several potential scenarios. The analysis of Dr. Shockley searches for a class of elusive elementary particles that interact with the electrons of ordinary atoms, instead of the nucleus. Results of the analysis present, with high confidence, an excess with respect to the expected background. Beyond more mundane explanations, this additional rate of electron-mediated interactions might be a first hint of physics beyond the standard model. This accessible thesis provides details on the detector, the data, and the theory, delivering to the reader an in-depth and coherent picture of the search for physics beyond the standard model.

Evan Shockley is currently a postdoctoral scholar at UC San Diego. He obtained his PhD from the University of Chicago in 2020 after earning a MS from the University of Chicago in 2016 and a BA from Saint Mary's University of Minnesota in 2014. In his final year at University of Chicago he was granted a Grainger Fellowship by the physics department for outstanding experimental research. A member of the XENON collaboration, his research interests center around the search for physics beyond the standard model using some of the world's most sensitive particle detectors.