First measurement of the absorption of $^{3}\overline{\rm He}$ nuclei in matter and impact on their propagation in the galaxy

The ALICE collaboration Acharya, Shreyasi ; Adamova, Dagmar ; Adler, Alexander ; et al.
Nature Phys. 19 (2023) 61-71, 2023.
Inspire Record 2026264 DOI 10.17182/hepdata.133480

In our Galaxy, light antinuclei composed of antiprotons and antineutrons can be produced through high-energy cosmic-ray collisions with the interstellar medium or could also originate from the annihilation of dark-matter particles that have not yet been discovered. On Earth, the only way to produce and study antinuclei with high precision is to create them at high-energy particle accelerators. Although the properties of elementary antiparticles have been studied in detail, the knowledge of the interaction of light antinuclei with matter is limited. We determine the disappearance probability of $^{3}\overline{\rm He}$ when it encounters matter particles and annihilates or disintegrates within the ALICE detector at the Large Hadron Collider. We extract the inelastic interaction cross section, which is then used as input to calculations of the transparency of our Galaxy to the propagation of $^{3}\overline{\rm He}$ stemming from dark-matter annihilation and cosmic-ray interactions within the interstellar medium. For a specific dark-matter profile, we estimate a transparency of about 50%, whereas it varies with increasing $^{3}\overline{\rm He}$ momentum from 25% to 90% for cosmic-ray sources. The results indicate that $^{3}\overline{\rm He}$ nuclei can travel long distances in the Galaxy, and can be used to study cosmic-ray interactions and dark-matter annihilation.

21 data tables

Raw primary antihelium3-to-helium3 ratio as a function of the momentum p_primary.

Raw primary antihelium3-to-helium3 ratio from Geant4-based MC simulations as a function of the momentum p_primary with default sigma_inel(3Hebar).

Raw primary antihelium3-to-helium3 ratio from Geant4-based MC simulations as a function of the momentum p_primary with sigma_inel(3Hebar)x0.5.

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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.


Search for neutrino emission from relic dark matter in the Sun with the Baikal NT200 detector

The Baikal collaboration Avrorin, A.D. ; Avrorin, A.V. ; Aynutdinov, V.M. ; et al.
Astropart.Phys. 62 (2015) 12-20, 2015.
Inspire Record 1296058 DOI 10.17182/hepdata.64126

We have analyzed a data set taken over 2.76 years live time with the Baikal neutrino telescope NT200. The goal of the analysis is to search for neutrinos from dark matter annihilation in the center of the Sun. Apart from the conventional annihilation channels $b\bar{b}$, $W^+W^-$ and $\tau^+\tau^-$ we consider also the annihilation of dark matter particles into monochromatic neutrinos. From the absence of any excess of events from the direction of the Sun over the expected background, we derive 90% upper limits on the fluxes of muons and muon neutrinos from the Sun, as well as on the elastic cross sections of dark matter scattering on protons.

6 data tables

Process: DM DM --> BOTTOM BOTTOMBAR. Half-cone angle GAMMA, 90% upper limit N(SIGNAL) on the number of signal events, the muon flux PHI(MU), the dark matter annihilation rate in the Sun GAMMA(ANN), the dark matter-proton spin-dependent SIG(SD) and spin-independent SIG(SI) scattering cross sections and neutrino flux PHI(NU).

Process: DM DM --> TAU+ TAU-. Half-cone angle GAMMA, 90% upper limit N(SIGNAL) on the number of signal events, the muon flux PHI(MU), the dark matter annihilation rate in the Sun GAMMA(ANN), the dark matter-proton spin-dependent SIG(SD) and spin-independent SIG(SI) scattering cross sections and neutrino flux PHI(NU).

Process: DM DM --> W+ W-. Half-cone angle GAMMA, 90% upper limit N(SIGNAL) on the number of signal events, the muon flux PHI(MU), the dark matter annihilation rate in the Sun GAMMA(ANN), the dark matter-proton spin-dependent SIG(SD) and spin-independent SIG(SI) scattering cross sections and neutrino flux PHI(NU).

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BICEP2 I: Detection Of B-mode Polarization at Degree Angular Scales

The BICEP2 collaboration Ade, P.A.R. ; Aikin, R.W. ; Barkats, D. ; et al.
Phys.Rev.Lett. 112 (2014) 241101, 2014.
Inspire Record 1286113 DOI 10.17182/hepdata.62706

(abridged for arXiv) We report results from the BICEP2 experiment, a cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarimeter specifically designed to search for the signal of inflationary gravitational waves in the B-mode power spectrum around $\ell\sim80$. The telescope comprised a 26 cm aperture all-cold refracting optical system equipped with a focal plane of 512 antenna coupled transition edge sensor 150 GHz bolometers each with temperature sensitivity of $\approx300\mu\mathrm{K}_\mathrm{CMB}\sqrt{s}$. BICEP2 observed from the South Pole for three seasons from 2010 to 2012. A low-foreground region of sky with an effective area of 380 square deg was observed to a depth of 87 nK deg in Stokes $Q$ and $U$. We find an excess of $B$-mode power over the base lensed-LCDM expectation in the range $30< \ell< 150$, inconsistent with the null hypothesis at a significance of $> 5\sigma$. Through jackknife tests and simulations we show that systematic contamination is much smaller than the observed excess. We also examine a number of available models of polarized dust emission and find that at their default parameter values they predict power $\sim(5-10)\times$ smaller than the observed excess signal. However, these models are not sufficiently constrained to exclude the possibility of dust emission bright enough to explain the entire excess signal. Cross correlating BICEP2 against 100 GHz maps from the BICEP1 experiment, the excess signal is confirmed and its spectral index is found to be consistent with that of the CMB, disfavoring dust at $1.7\sigma$. The observed $B$-mode power spectrum is well fit by a lensed-LCDM + tensor theoretical model with tensor-to-scalar ratio $r=0.20^{+0.07}_{-0.05}$, with $r=0$ disfavored at $7.0\sigma$. Accounting for the contribution of foreground dust will shift this value downward by an amount which will be better constrained with upcoming data sets.

2 data tables

BICEP2 TT, TE, EE, BB, TB, and EB bandpowers, ell*(ell+1)*C(ell)/(2*PI), and uncertainties, corresponding to Figure 2. Uncertainties are statistical only, the standard deviation of the constrained lensed-LambdaCDM+noise simulations, and are calculated as the square root of diagonal elements of the bandpower covariance matrix. The nature of the simulations constrains T to match the observed sky, thus TT, TE, and TB uncertainties do not include appropriate sample variance, and sample variance for a tensor BB signal is not included either. The calibration procedure uses TB and EB to constrain the polarization angle, thus TB and EB cannot be used to measure astrophysical polarization rotation.

Likelihood for the tensor-to-scalar ratio, r, derived from the BICEP2 BB spectrum, corresponding to the black curve from the middle panel of Figure 10, and calculated via the "direct likelihood" method described in Section 11.1.