The XENON100 exclusion limit without considering Leff as a nuisance
  parameter
  In 2011, the XENON100 experiment has set unprecedented constraints on dark
matter-nucleon interactions, excluding dark matter candidates with masses down
to 6 GeV if the corresponding cross section is larger than 10^{-39} cm^2. The
dependence of the exclusion limit in terms of the scintillation efficiency
(Leff) has been debated at length. To overcome possible criticisms XENON100
performed an analysis in which Leff was considered as a nuisance parameter and
its uncertainties were profiled out by using a Gaussian likelihood in which the
mean value corresponds to the best fit Leff value smoothly extrapolated to zero
below 3 keVnr. Although such a method seems fairly robust, it does not account
for more extreme types of extrapolation nor does it enable to anticipate on how
much the exclusion limit would vary if new data were to support a flat
behaviour for Leff below 3 keVnr, for example. Yet, such a question is crucial
for light dark matter models which are close to the published XENON100 limit.
To answer this issue, we use a maximum Likelihood ratio analysis, as done by
the XENON100 collaboration, but do not consider Leff as a nuisance parameter.
Instead, Leff is obtained directly from the fits to the data. This enables us
to define frequentist confidence intervals by marginalising over Leff.
