A Realistic Assessment of the Sensitivity of XENON10 and XENON100 to Light-Mass WIMPs

Abstract

The underlaying assumptions and uncertainties involved in the derivation of WIMP exclusion limits from XENON10 and XENON100 detectors are examined. In view of these, recent claims of sensitivity to light-mass Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) are shown to be overstated. Specifically, bounds constraining regions of interest in WIMP parameter space from the DAMA/LIBRA, CoGeNT and CRESST experiments can be assigned a very limited meaning, if any.

Fig. 1 updated to include new ZEPLIN-III measurements of Leff (arXiv:1106.0694). Version submitted for publication. v3: minor mistakes in calls to new Fig. 1 corrected