Light dark matter search in XENON1T using single- and few-electron ionization-only signals

The energy threshold of liquid xenon detectors is driven by the requirements of observing a scintillation signal as well as a large ionization signal. Observing both allows powerful background rejection but limits the sensitivity below O(10GeV). In the first search from XENON1T for light dark matter, events using only the ionization signal were used to set limits down to WIMP masses of 3 GeV but was limited to an ionization signal of 5 electrons due to single- and few-electron backgrounds that were not well understood. A dedicated analysis was performed to understand these backgrounds and event selections were developed to mitigate them. In this talk, we discuss details of the analysis and present its status in a search for light dark matter signals using only the single- and few-electron ionization signals in the XENON1T detector and discuss the implications they have for XENONnT and supernova neutrino detection.