Dark Matter Search Results from <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:mn>4.2</mml:mn><mml:mtext> </mml:mtext><mml:mtext> </mml:mtext><mml:mtext>Tonne</mml:mtext><mml:mtext>−</mml:mtext><mml:mtext>Years</mml:mtext></mml:mrow></mml:math> of Exposure of the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) Experiment

Abstract

We report results of a search for nuclear recoils induced by weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter using the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) two-phase xenon time projection chamber. This analysis uses a total exposure of 4.2±0.1 tonne-years from 280 live days of LZ operation, of which 3.3±0.1 tonne-years and 220 live days are new. A technique to actively tag background electronic recoils from ^{214}Pb β decays is featured for the first time. Enhanced electron-ion recombination is observed in two-neutrino double electron capture decays of ^{124}Xe, representing a noteworthy new background. After removal of artificial signal-like events injected into the dataset to mitigate analyzer bias, we find no evidence for an excess over expected backgrounds. World-leading constraints are placed on spin-independent (SI) and spin-dependent WIMP-nucleon cross sections for masses ≥9 GeV/c^{2}. The strongest SI exclusion set is 2.2×10^{-48} cm^{2} at the 90% confidence level and the best SI median sensitivity achieved is 5.1×10^{-48} cm^{2}, both for a mass of 40 GeV/c^{2}.