Abstract:

The XENON100 experiment searches for galactic dark matter in the form of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) via their collisions with xenon nuclei in an ultra-low background, liquid xenon time-projection chamber operating in the Gran Sasso Underground Laboratory (LNGS) in Italy. The next phase, XENON1T, is based on 3 tons of liquid xenon viewed by low-radioactivity photomultiplier tubes and housed in a water Cherenkov shield at LNGS. With construction to start in spring 2013, and the first science run in 2015, the goal is to probe spin-independent WIMP-nucleon cross sections as low as 2e-11 pb for 50 GeV particles. I will present results from a 225 live days dark matter run with XENON100, show the status of XENON1T and discuss some of its challenges.