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.
WIMP exclusion limit on the spin-independent WIMP-nucleon scattering cross section at 90% confidence level.
The energy loss spectrum of 150 GeV muons has been measured with a prototype of the ATLAS hadron calorimeter in the H8 beam of the CERN SPS. The differential probability dP/dv per radiation length of a fractional energy loss v = ΔEμ/Eμ has been measured in the range v = 0.01 ÷ 0.95; it is compared with the theoretical predictions for energy losses due to bremsstrahlung and production of electron—positron pairs or of energetic knock-on electrons. The integrated probability \(\int_{0.01}^{0.95}({\rm d}P/{\rm d}v){\rm d}v\) is (1.610 ± 0.015stat ± 0.105syst) · 10−3 in agreement with the theoretical predictions 1.556 · 10−3 and 1.619 · 10−3. Agreement with theory is also found in two intervals of v where production of electron-positron pairs and knock-on electrons dominates. In the region of bremsstrahlung dominance (v = 0.12 ÷ 0.95) the measured integrated probability (1.160 ± 0.040stat ± 0.075syst) · 10−4 is in agreement with the theoretical value of 1.185 · 10−4, obtained using the Petrukhin and Shestakov description of the bremsstrahlung process. The same result is about 3.6 standard deviations (defined as the quadratic sum of statistical and systematic errors) lower than the theoretical prediction of 1.472 · 10−4, obtained using Tsai’s description of bremsstrahlung.
Measured differential probability values DPROB/DNU for fractional energy loss. Only statistical errors are given.
Integrated probability (DELTA(PROB)) per radiation length.
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