Determination of Radiogenic Backgrounds in the LUX Detector

LUX (Large Underground Xenon) is a retired, liquid xenon, direct dark matter detection experiment that published its third and best limit on the spin-independent cross section for WIMP-nucleon scattering in the fall of 2016. Subsequently, the collaborations efforts have shifted to completing searches for new physics at energies greater than the standard WIMP-nucleon scattering range. In this new regime, accurate determination of the background rate from radiogenic sources is exceedingly important due to the complicated shape of the energy spectrum from these events. This talk presents the latest analyses of α, β, and γ backgrounds intrinsic to the liquid xenon and originating from the detector materials. This work refines previous radio-contamination measurements, and attempts to better understand the spatial variation of specific background-generating isotopes. The impact of the revised background model on the detector sensitivity to new high energy physics searches is discussed.