A search for dark matter in events with one jet and missing transverse energy in pp-bar collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV

Abstract

We present the results of a search for dark matter production in the monojet signature. We analyze a sample of Tevatron pp-bar collisions at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 6.7/fb recorded by the CDF II detector. In events with large missing transverse energy and one energetic jet, we find good agreement between the standard model prediction and the observed data. We set 90% confidence level upper limits on the dark matter production rate. The limits are translated into bounds on nucleon-dark matter scattering rates which are competitive with current direct detection bounds on spin-independent interaction below a dark matter candidate mass of 5 GeV/c^2, and on spin-dependent interactions up to masses of 200 GeV/c^2.

Figures (2)

• Figure 1: Distribution of the jet $E_{T}$ for the multijet control (a), electroweak control (b), and analysis (c) samples. The last bin contains the overflow. For the analysis sample, the jet $E_{T}$ of a representative signal process ($\chi\bar{\chi}+$jet) is shown normalized to the 90% confidence level upper limit production rate of 5.9 pb.
• Figure 2: Comparison of CDF results to recent results from DAMIC DAMICN, CoGeNT COGENT, XENON-100 XENONN, SIMPLE SIMPLEN, and COUPP COUPPN. Spin-independent (left) and spin-dependent (right) bounds are shown for the operators (defined in text) $\mathcal{O}_{AV}$, $\mathcal{O}_{V}$, and $\mathcal{O}_{t}$, assuming contact interactions. For comparison we also display CDF bounds assuming light mediators.