Dacheng Xu

I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Physics at Columbia University, advised by Prof. Elena Aprile. I am a member of the XENON Collaboration, working at the intersection of neutrino physics and dark matter direct detection.

My research centers on the XENONnT experiment at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS). I led the search for coherent elastic neutrino–nucleus scattering (CEνNS) from solar ⁸B neutrinos and for light dark matter. This work achieved the first measurement of the “neutrino fog”, a long-anticipated irreducible background for next-generation dark matter searches. I have served as an Analysis Coordinator and as convener of the Computing and Analysis Tools Group within XENONnT.

Previously, I received my Bachelor of Engineering from the Department of Engineering Physics, Tsinghua University, where I worked with Prof. Fei Gao and Prof. Litao Yang on the conceptual design of a reactor neutrino detector.

I have broad interests spanning physics, engineering, and computation, and I enjoy exploring ideas beyond my primary research. The Explorations page presents a selection of projects and is continuously updated.