LUX dark matter search: expected sensitivity

The LUX 300~kg two-phase Xe detector aims to detect or exclude dark matter in the form of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) with scalar cross section (per nucleon) as low as $7\times10^{-46}$~cm$^2$. This is equivalent to $\sim 0.5$~events/100~kg/month in a 100~kg fiducial volume. The LUX design is set to ensure $<1$ background event / 10~months live, which could potentially be characterized as a WIMP interaction. Based on above-ground calibrations and data from the XENON10 experiment, LUX expects to reject up to 99.9\% of the dominant electron-recoil background at detector threshold ($\sim5$~keVr), with 50\% acceptance for nuclear recoils. This talk will discuss the projected sensitivity of the LUX experiment for elastic and inelastic dark matter scenarios.