A New Method for Analysing Dark Matter Direct Detection Data
  The experimental situation of Dark Matter Direct Detection has reached an
exciting cross-roads, with potential hints of a discovery of Dark Matter (DM)
from the CDMS, CoGeNT, CRESST-II and DAMA experiments in tension with
null-results from xenon-based experiments such as XENON100 and LUX. Given the
present controversial experimental status, it is important that the analytical
method used to search for DM in Direct Detection experiments is both robust and
flexible enough to deal with data for which the distinction between signal and
background points is difficult, and hence where the choice between setting a
limit or defining a discovery region is debatable. In this article we propose a
novel (Bayesian) analytical method, which can be applied to all Direct
Detection experiments and which extracts the maximum amount of information from
the data. We apply our method to the XENON100 experiment data as a worked
example, and show that firstly our exclusion limit at 90% confidence is in
agreement with their own for the 225 Live Days data, but is several times
stronger for the 100 Live Days data. Secondly we find that, due to the two
points at low values of S1 and S2 in the 225 days data-set, our analysis points
to either weak consistency with low-mass Dark Matter or the possible presence
of an unknown background. Given the null-result from LUX, the latter scenario
seems the more plausible.
