A low-mass dark matter search using ionization signals in XENON100

The XENON collaboration Aprile, E. ; Aalbers, J. ; Agostini, F. ; et al.
Phys.Rev.D 94 (2016) 092001, 2016.
Inspire Record 1463250 DOI 10.17182/hepdata.78548

We perform a low-mass dark matter search using an exposure of 30\,kg$\times$yr with the XENON100 detector. By dropping the requirement of a scintillation signal and using only the ionization signal to determine the interaction energy, we lowered the energy threshold for detection to 0.7\,keV for nuclear recoils. No dark matter detection can be claimed because a complete background model cannot be constructed without a primary scintillation signal. Instead, we compute an upper limit on the WIMP-nucleon scattering cross section under the assumption that every event passing our selection criteria could be a signal event. Using an energy interval from 0.7\,keV to 9.1\,keV, we derive a limit on the spin-independent WIMP-nucleon cross section that excludes WIMPs with a mass of 6\,GeV/$c^2$ above $1.4 \times 10^{-41}$\,cm$^2$ at 90\% confidence level.

1 data table

WIMP exclusion limit on the spin-independent WIMP-nucleon scattering cross section at 90% confidence level.


Measurement of $K^{+}$ production in charged-current $\nu_{\mu}$ interactions

The MINERvA collaboration Marshall, C.M. ; Aliaga, L. ; Altinok, O. ; et al.
Phys.Rev.D 94 (2016) 012002, 2016.
Inspire Record 1446753 DOI 10.17182/hepdata.78539

Production of K^{+} mesons in charged-current \nu_{\mu} interactions on plastic scintillator (CH) is measured using MINERvA exposed to the low-energy NuMI beam at Fermilab. Timing information is used to isolate a sample of 885 charged-current events containing a stopping K^{+} which decays at rest. The differential cross section in K^{+} kinetic energy, d\sigma/dT_{K}, is observed to be relatively flat between 0 and 500 MeV. Its shape is in good agreement with the prediction by the \textsc{genie} neutrino event generator when final-state interactions are included, however the data rate is lower than the prediction by 15\%.

5 data tables

The predicted $\nu_\mu$ flux per POT for the data included in this analysis.

The differential cross section with respect to $K^+$ kinetic energy $T_{K}$ is given in units of $10^{-39}$ cm$^{2}$ per nucleon per GeV, as well as the total statistical and systematic uncertainties.

The covariance for the flux uncertainty.

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