Dr Adam Softley-Brown
School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences
Research Fellow in Particle Physics
adam.m.brown@sheffield.ac.uk
F34, Hicks Building
Full contact details
Dr Adam Softley-Brown
School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences
F34
Hicks Building
Hounsfield Road
Sheffield
S3 7RH
School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences
F34
Hicks Building
Hounsfield Road
Sheffield
S3 7RH
- Profile
-
I am an experimental particle astrophysicist, trying to solve some of the big riddles in fundamental physics. My research is based on the direct search for dark matter by using liquid-xenon based detectors.
I am a member of the LZ collaboration, which operates an experiment in the Sanford Underground Research Facility (South Dakota, USA). The LZ experiment is based around a dual-phase xenon time projection chamber, or TPC, which records tiny flashes of scintillation light and small numbers of ionised electrons produced when particles interact within it. This gives us information about the position, energy, and type of the interaction which took place.
By operating the detector deep underground, carefully selecting the purest of materials to build it from, and employing veto detectors, we minimise natural background sources of particle interactions. This means that when we do see the signal we are looking for, we can be sure it is from dark matter.
The global XLZD collaboration, of which I am also a member, is working towards an even more sensitive experiment. This will be around ten times bigger than LZ, and have a significantly lower background, and therefore will be able to probe more weakly interacting dark matter.
I am involved in various aspects of the preparations and design of XLZD, including being part of the team developing the central detector. I am also part of an effort to attract the experiment to the UK, where it would be hosted in the Boulby Underground Laboratory.
XLZD will be sensitive enough to detect the dark matter particles predicted by many leading theories and to look for neutrinoless double-beta decay. It will also be sensitive to interactions of various types of neutrino coming from the Sun, which can give us insights into solar physics as well as into the properties of neutrinos.
- Publications
-
Show: Featured publications All publications
Featured publications
Journal articles
- Proportional scintillation in liquid xenon: demonstration in a single-phase liquid-only time projection chamber. Journal of Instrumentation, 19(09). View this article in WRRO
- PANCAKE: a large-diameter cryogenic test platform with a flat floor for next generation multi-tonne liquid xenon detectors. Journal of Instrumentation, 19(05), P05018-P05018.
- First dark matter search with nuclear recoils from the XENONnT experiment. Physical Review Letters, 131(4). View this article in WRRO
- Improved quality tests of R11410-21 photomultiplier tubes for the XENONnT experiment. Journal of Instrumentation, 16(08). View this article in WRRO
- Search for inelastic scattering of WIMP dark matter in XENON1T. Physical Review D, 103(6). View this article in WRRO
- Observation of two-neutrino double electron capture in 124Xe with XENON1T. Nature, 568(7753), 532-535. View this article in WRRO
- Dark matter search results from a one ton-year exposure of XENON1T. Physical Review Letters, 121(11). View this article in WRRO
- Reduction of 222Rn-induced backgrounds in a hermetic dual-phase xenon time projection chamber. European Physical Journal C, 83(1), 9.
Preprints
- First Indication of Solar $^8$B Neutrinos via Coherent Elastic
Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering with XENONnT.
All publications
Journal articles
- The XLZD design book: towards the next-generation liquid xenon observatory for dark matter and neutrino physics. The European Physical Journal C, 85. View this article in WRRO
- Radon removal in XENONnT down to the solar neutrino level. Physical Review X, 15. View this article in WRRO
- The neutron veto of the XENONnT experiment: results with demineralized water. The European Physical Journal C, 85(6). View this article in WRRO
- XENONnT WIMP search: signal and background modeling and statistical inference. Physical Review D, 111(10). View this article in WRRO
- Search for light dark matter in low-energy ionization signals from XENONnT. Physical Review Letters, 134(16). View this article in WRRO
- Neutrinoless double beta decay sensitivity of the XLZD rare event observatory. Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics, 52(4). View this article in WRRO
- XENONnT analysis: signal reconstruction, calibration, and event selection. Physical Review D, 111(6). View this article in WRRO
- First search for light dark matter in the neutrino fog with XENONnT. Physical Review Letters, 134(11). View this article in WRRO
- First Indication of solar 8 B neutrinos via coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering with XENONnT. Physical Review Letters, 133. View this article in WRRO
- Proportional scintillation in liquid xenon: demonstration in a single-phase liquid-only time projection chamber. Journal of Instrumentation, 19(09). View this article in WRRO
- The XENONnT dark matter experiment. The European Physical Journal C, 84. View this article in WRRO
- Offline tagging of radon-induced backgrounds in XENON1T and applicability to other liquid xenon time projection chambers. Physical Review D, 110. View this article in WRRO
- Effective field theory and inelastic dark matter results from XENON1T. Physical Review D, 109. View this article in WRRO
- PANCAKE: a large-diameter cryogenic test platform with a flat floor for next generation multi-tonne liquid xenon detectors. Journal of Instrumentation, 19(05), P05018-P05018.
- Design and performance of the field cage for the XENONnT experiment. The European Physical Journal C, 84. View this article in WRRO
- Cosmogenic background simulations for neutrinoless double beta decay with the DARWIN observatory at various underground sites. The European Physical Journal C, 84. View this article in WRRO
- Search for events in XENON1T associated with gravitational waves. Physical Review D, 108(7). View this article in WRRO
- The triggerless data acquisition system of the XENONnT experiment. Journal of Instrumentation, 18(07). View this article in WRRO
- First dark matter search with nuclear recoils from the XENONnT experiment. Physical Review Letters, 131(4). View this article in WRRO
- Detector signal characterization with a Bayesian network in XENONnT. Physical Review D, 108(1). View this article in WRRO
- Searching for heavy dark matter near the Planck mass with XENON1T. Physical Review Letters, 130(26). View this article in WRRO
- The XeBRA platform for liquid xenon time projection chamber development. Journal of Instrumentation, 18(02). View this article in WRRO
- A next-generation liquid xenon observatory for dark matter and neutrino physics. Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics, 50(1). View this article in WRRO
- An approximate likelihood for nuclear recoil searches with XENON1T data. The European Physical Journal C, 82(11). View this article in WRRO
- Search for new physics in electronic recoil data from XENONnT. Physical Review Letters, 129(16). View this article in WRRO
- Double-weak decays of Xe 124 and Xe 136 in the XENON1T and XENONnT experiments. Physical Review C, 106(2).
- GPU-based optical simulation of the DARWIN detector. Journal of Instrumentation, 17(07). View this article in WRRO
- Material radiopurity control in the XENONnT experiment. The European Physical Journal C, 82(7). View this article in WRRO
- Emission of single and few electrons in XENON1T and limits on light dark matter. Physical Review D, 106(2). View this article in WRRO
- Application and modeling of an online distillation method to reduce krypton and argon in XENON1T. Progress of Theoretical and Experimental Physics, 2022(5). View this article in WRRO
- Improved quality tests of R11410-21 photomultiplier tubes for the XENONnT experiment. Journal of Instrumentation, 16(08). View this article in WRRO
- 222Rn emanation measurements for the XENON1T experiment. European Physical Journal C, 81(4), 337.
- Search for inelastic scattering of WIMP dark matter in XENON1T. Physical Review D, 103(6). View this article in WRRO
- Search for Coherent Elastic Scattering of Solar B8 Neutrinos in the XENON1T Dark Matter Experiment. Physical Review Letters, 126(9), 091301.
- Solar neutrino detection sensitivity in DARWIN via electron scattering. The European Physical Journal C, 80(12). View this article in WRRO
- Projected WIMP sensitivity of the XENONnT dark matter experiment. Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, 2020(11). View this article in WRRO
- Excess electronic recoil events in XENON1T. Physical Review D, 102(7). View this article in WRRO
- Sensitivity of the DARWIN observatory to the neutrinoless double beta decay of 136Xe. European Physical Journal C, 80(9), 808.
- Energy resolution and linearity of XENON1T in the MeV energy range. The European Physical Journal C, 80(8). View this article in WRRO
- Testing claims of the GW170817 binary neutron star inspiral affecting β-decay rates. Astroparticle Physics, 119. View this article in WRRO
- Light dark matter search with ionization signals in XENON1T. Physical Review Letters, 123(25). View this article in WRRO
- Search for light dark matter interactions enhanced by the Migdal effect or bremsstrahlung in XENON1T. Physical Review Letters, 123(24). View this article in WRRO
- XENON1T dark matter data analysis: signal reconstruction, calibration, and event selection. Physical Review D, 100(5). View this article in WRRO
- The XENON1T data acquisition system. Journal of Instrumentation, 14(07). View this article in WRRO
- XENON1T dark matter data analysis: Signal and background models and statistical inference. Physical Review D, 99(11). View this article in WRRO
- Observation of two-neutrino double electron capture in 124Xe with XENON1T. Nature, 568(7753), 532-535. View this article in WRRO
- Constraining the spin-dependent WIMP-nucleon cross sections with XENON1T. Physical Review Letters, 122(14). View this article in WRRO
- First results on the scalar WIMP-pion coupling, using the XENON1T experiment. Physical Review Letters, 122(7). View this article in WRRO
- Dark matter search results from a one ton-year exposure of XENON1T. Physical Review Letters, 121(11). View this article in WRRO
- No correlation between solar flares and the decay rate of several β-decaying isotopes. Astroparticle Physics, 103, 62-66. View this article in WRRO
- A precision experiment to investigate long-lived radioactive decays. Journal of Instrumentation, 13(07). View this article in WRRO
- Search for bosonic super-WIMP interactions with the XENON100 experiment. Physical Review D, 96(12). View this article in WRRO
- First dark matter search results from the XENON1T experiment. Physical Review Letters, 119(18). View this article in WRRO
- Erratum to: Sensitivity of the DARWIN observatory to the neutrinoless double beta decay of 136Xe. European Physical Journal C, 83(11), 996.
- Low-energy calibration of XENON1T with an internal 37Ar source. European Physical Journal C, 83(6), 542.
- Reduction of 222Rn-induced backgrounds in a hermetic dual-phase xenon time projection chamber. European Physical Journal C, 83(1), 9.
Preprints
- Spectral Measurement of the $^{214}$Bi beta-decay to the $^{214}$Po
Ground State with XENONnT.
- Challenging Spontaneous Quantum Collapse with XENONnT.
- WIMP Dark Matter Search using a 3.1 tonne $times$ year Exposure of the
XENONnT Experiment.
- Radon Removal in XENONnT down to the Solar Neutrino Level.
- Low-Energy Nuclear Recoil Calibration of XENONnT with a $^{88}$YBe
Photoneutron Source.
- The neutron veto of the XENONnT experiment: Results with demineralized
water.
- Search for Light Dark Matter in Low-Energy Ionization Signals from
XENONnT.
- Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay Sensitivity of the XLZD Rare Event Observatory, arXiv.
- The XLZD Design Book: Towards the Next-Generation Liquid Xenon Observatory for Dark Matter and Neutrino Physics, arXiv.
- Model-independent searches of new physics in DARWIN with a
semi-supervised deep learning pipeline.
- First Search for Light Dark Matter in the Neutrino Fog with XENONnT.
- XENONnT Analysis: Signal Reconstruction, Calibration and Event Selection.
- First Indication of Solar $^8$B Neutrinos via Coherent Elastic
Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering with XENONnT.
- XENONnT WIMP Search: Signal & Background Modeling and Statistical
Inference.
- Proportional scintillation in liquid xenon: demonstration in a single-phase liquid-only time projection chamber, arXiv.
- Offline tagging of radon-induced backgrounds in XENON1T and
applicability to other liquid xenon detectors.
- The XENONnT Dark Matter Experiment.
- PANCAKE: a large-diameter cryogenic test platform with a flat floor for next generation multi-tonne liquid xenon detectors, arXiv.
- Design and performance of the field cage for the XENONnT experiment, arXiv.
- Cosmogenic background simulations for the DARWIN observatory at
different underground locations.
- Search for events in XENON1T associated with Gravitational Waves.
- Searching for Heavy Dark Matter near the Planck Mass with XENON1T.
- Detector signal characterization with a Bayesian network in XENONnT.
- First Dark Matter Search with Nuclear Recoils from the XENONnT
Experiment.
- The Triggerless Data Acquisition System of the XENONnT Experiment.
- Low-energy Calibration of XENON1T with an Internal $^{37}$Ar Source.
- Effective field theory and inelastic dark matter results from XENON1T.
- An approximate likelihood for nuclear recoil searches with XENON1T data.
- Reduction of $^{222}$Rn-induced Backgrounds in a Hermetic Dual-Phase Xenon Time Projection Chamber, arXiv.
- The XeBRA platform for liquid xenon time projection chamber development, arXiv.
- Search for New Physics in Electronic Recoil Data from XENONnT.
- Double-Weak Decays of $^{124}$Xe and $^{136}$Xe in the XENON1T and
XENONnT Experiments.
- GPU-based optical simulation of the DARWIN detector.
- A Next-Generation Liquid Xenon Observatory for Dark Matter and Neutrino Physics, arXiv.
- Emission of Single and Few Electrons in XENON1T and Limits on Light Dark
Matter.
- Application and modeling of an online distillation method to reduce
krypton and argon in XENON1T.
- Material radiopurity control in the XENONnT experiment.
- Improved quality tests of R11410-21 photomultiplier tubes for the XENONnT experiment, arXiv.
- Search for Coherent Elastic Scattering of Solar $^8$B Neutrinos in the
XENON1T Dark Matter Experiment.
- Search for inelastic scattering of WIMP dark matter in XENON1T.
- $^{222}$Rn emanation measurements for the XENON1T experiment.
- Projected WIMP Sensitivity of the XENONnT Dark Matter Experiment.
- Excess Electronic Recoil Events in XENON1T.
- Solar Neutrino Detection Sensitivity in DARWIN via Electron Scattering.
- Sensitivity of the DARWIN observatory to the neutrinoless double beta
decay of $^{136}$Xe.
- Energy resolution and linearity of XENON1T in the MeV energy range.
- Testing claims of the GW170817 binary neutron star inspiral affecting $beta$-decay rates, arXiv.
- Search for Light Dark Matter Interactions Enhanced by the Migdal effect
or Bremsstrahlung in XENON1T.
- Light Dark Matter Search with Ionization Signals in XENON1T.
- XENON1T Dark Matter Data Analysis: Signal Reconstruction, Calibration
and Event Selection.
- The XENON1T Data Acquisition System.
- First observation of two-neutrino double electron capture in $^{124}$Xe
with XENON1T.
- XENON1T Dark Matter Data Analysis: Signal & Background Models, and
Statistical Inference.
- Constraining the Spin-Dependent WIMP-Nucleon Cross Sections with XENON1T.
- First results on the scalar WIMP-pion coupling, using the XENON1T
experiment.
- No correlation between Solar flares and the decay rate of several $beta$-decaying isotopes, arXiv.
- Dark Matter Search Results from a One Tonne$times$Year Exposure of
XENON1T.
- A Precision Experiment to Investigate Long-Lived Radioactive Decays, arXiv.
- Search for Bosonic Super-WIMP Interactions with the XENON100 Experiment.
- First Dark Matter Search Results from the XENON1T Experiment.
- Proportional scintillation in liquid xenon: demonstration in a single-phase liquid-only time projection chamber. Journal of Instrumentation, 19(09). View this article in WRRO
- Research group