The goal of this paper is to introduce a novel likelihood-based inferential framework for axion haloscopes that is valid under the commonly applied rescanning protocol. The proposed method enjoys ...short data acquisition times and simple tuning of the detector configuration. Local statistical significance and power are computed analytically, avoiding the need for burdensome simulations. Adequate corrections for the look-elsewhere effect are also discussed. The performance of our inferential strategy is compared with that of a simple method that exploits the geometric probability of rescan. Finally, we exemplify the method with an application to a HAYSTAC-type axion haloscope.
We summarize the recent progress of the Axion Longitudinal Plasma Haloscope (ALPHA) Consortium, a new experimental collaboration to build a plasma haloscope to search for axions and dark photons. The ...plasma haloscope is a novel method for the detection of the resonant conversion of light dark matter to photons. ALPHA will be sensitive to QCD axions over almost a decade of parameter space, potentially discovering dark matter and resolving the strong CP problem. Unlike traditional cavity haloscopes, which are generally limited in volume by the Compton wavelength of the dark matter, plasma haloscopes use a wire metamaterial to create a tuneable artificial plasma frequency, decoupling the wavelength of light from the Compton wavelength and allowing for much stronger signals. We develop the theoretical foundations of plasma haloscopes and discuss recent experimental progress. Finally, we outline a baseline design for ALPHA and show that a full-scale experiment could discover QCD axions over almost a decade of parameter space.
Neutrino leptonic flavor symmetry violation is the only evidence for physics beyond the standard model. Much of what we have learned on these particles is derived from the study of their natural ...sources, such as the Sun or core-collapse supernovae. Neutrino emission from supernovae is particularly interesting and leptonic flavor transformations in supernova neutrinos have attracted a lot of theoretical attention. Unfortunately, the emission of core-collapse supernovae is not fully understood: thus, an inescapable preliminary step to progress is to improve on that, and future neutrino observations can help. One pressing and answerable question concerns the time distribution of the supernova anti-neutrino events. We propose a class of models of the time distribution that describe emission curves similar to those theoretically expected and consistent with available observations from the data of supernova SN1987A. They have the advantages of being motivated on physical bases and easy to interpret; they are flexible and adaptable to the results of the observations from a future galactic supernova. Important general characteristics of these models are the presence of an initial ramp and that a significant portion of the signal is in the first second of the emission.
We report on the first search for nuclear recoils from dark matter in the form of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) with the XENONnT experiment, which is based on a two-phase time ...projection chamber with a sensitive liquid xenon mass of 5.9 ton. During the (1.09±0.03) ton yr exposure used for this search, the intrinsic ^{85}Kr and ^{222}Rn concentrations in the liquid target are reduced to unprecedentedly low levels, giving an electronic recoil background rate of (15.8±1.3) events/ton yr keV in the region of interest. A blind analysis of nuclear recoil events with energies between 3.3 and 60.5 keV finds no significant excess. This leads to a minimum upper limit on the spin-independent WIMP-nucleon cross section of 2.58×10^{-47} cm^{2} for a WIMP mass of 28 GeV/c^{2} at 90% confidence level. Limits for spin-dependent interactions are also provided. Both the limit and the sensitivity for the full range of WIMP masses analyzed here improve on previous results obtained with the XENON1T experiment for the same exposure.
The goal of this paper is to introduce a novel likelihood-based inferential framework for axion haloscopes which is valid under the commonly applied "rescanning" protocol. The proposed method enjoys ...short data acquisition times and a simple tuning of the detector configuration. Local statistical significance and power are computed analytically, avoiding the need of burdensome simulations. Adequate corrections for the look-elsewhere effect are also discussed. The performance of our inferential strategy is compared with that of a simple method which exploits the geometric probability of rescan. Finally, we exemplify the method with an application to a HAYSTAC type axion haloscope.
Multiple viable theoretical models predict heavy dark matter particles with a mass close to the Planck mass, a range relatively unexplored by current experimental measurements. We use 219.4 days of ...data collected with the XENON1T experiment to conduct a blind search for signals from multiply interacting massive particles (MIMPs). Their unique track signature allows a targeted analysis with only 0.05 expected background events from muons. Following unblinding, we observe no signal candidate events. This Letter places strong constraints on spin-independent interactions of dark matter particles with a mass between 1×10^{12} and 2×10^{17} GeV/c^{2}. In addition, we present the first exclusion limits on spin-dependent MIMP-neutron and MIMP-proton cross sections for dark matter particles with masses close to the Planck scale.
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