Comments on "First Dark Matter Results from the XENON100 Experiment"

TL;DR

This paper critiques the XENON100 dark matter search results, highlighting uncertainties and biases that question their sensitivity claims, especially for low-mass WIMPs below 10 GeV/c^2, based on analysis and kinematic considerations.

Contribution

It provides a critical analysis of the XENON100 results, emphasizing potential limitations in their methodology and the effectiveness of liquid xenon for detecting low-mass WIMPs.

Findings

Identifies sources of uncertainty in XENON100 analysis.

Argues liquid xenon may be insensitive to low-energy recoils from light WIMPs.

Highlights the need for further work and alternative detection strategies.

Abstract

The XENON100 collaboration has recently released new dark matter limits, placing particular emphasis on their impact on searches known to be sensitive to light-mass (below 10 GeV/c^2) Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), such as DAMA and CoGeNT. We describe here several sources of uncertainty and bias in their analysis that make their new claimed sensitivity presently untenable. In particular, we point out additional work in this field and simple kinematic arguments that indicate that liquid xenon (LXe) may be a relatively insensitive detection medium for the recoil energies (few keV_r) expected from such low mass WIMPs.