[BDXlist] [EXTERNAL] BDX bi-weekly meeting on Friday September 2 at 10:00 (EDT) - 16:00 ITALY

[Marco Battaglieri]

Dear colleagues,

We will have a  BDX meeting on *Friday **September 2 at 10**:00AM (EST*) 
*- (16:00 ITALY)*

For remote connection, follow the link reported below.
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__jlab-2Dorg.zoomgov.com_j_1602402962-3Fpwd-3DSGtYZTFyOVgrbEUxdHN3Z1N1SVYrUT09&d=DwIDaQ&c=CJqEzB1piLOyyvZjb8YUQw&r=Ru7nA6zPBSFajtw1o6aZjchIV9Cs2SBk2RiVldzQhDc&m=Mz2xtv_9isviuMBbRUb1f7z-sd79V25wnLGbz9cALYrbC1pJ-iqgemHUPEISffoF&s=8-bugaMlfVhv7DGUUp7eHP3_oQmDx7bl7D4dhSe7VZc&e=  

Main items to discuss: PRD referee's report (see below)

Talk to you tomorrow
Cheers
Marco

ps Andrea already set an overleaf doc
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__docs.google.com_document_d_1zb4uXiux0r6jkPs-5FvWVmnt7AIdaNly7xo3adJIVNyMI_edit-3Fusp-3Dsharing&d=DwIDaQ&c=CJqEzB1piLOyyvZjb8YUQw&r=Ru7nA6zPBSFajtw1o6aZjchIV9Cs2SBk2RiVldzQhDc&m=Mz2xtv_9isviuMBbRUb1f7z-sd79V25wnLGbz9cALYrbC1pJ-iqgemHUPEISffoF&s=MwTB3JvOl86CNi-s_eZ-unpzF7Cy3mk4q52vvwWc3lI&e=  
where we can address referee's comments.


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Your_manuscript DV12847 Battaglieri
Date: 2022-08-29 15:01
From: prd at aps.org
To: luca.marsicano at ge.infn.it

Re: DV12847
     Dark matter search with the BDX-MINI experiment
     by M. Battaglieri, M. Bond\'i, A. Celentano, et al.

Dear Dr. Marsicano,

The above manuscript has been reviewed by one of our referees.
Comments from the report appear below.

These comments suggest that considerable revision of your paper may be
in order.  If you resubmit your manuscript, please include a summary of
the changes made and a brief response to all recommendations or
criticisms.

Yours sincerely,

Urs M. Heller, Ph.D.
Editor
Physical Review D
Email: prd at aps.org
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Report of the Referee -- DV12847/Battaglieri
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Review of DV12847 PRD manuscript “Dark matter search with the BDX-MINI
experiment”,
by M. Battaglieri, M. Bond\'i, A. Celentano, et al.

Major findings:

The BDX-MINI experiment was used to search for LDM that might be
produced in interactions of an intense electron beam. Experimental
setup, detector simulation and the data collection campaign
(beam-on/off modes) are described in detail. Analysis procedure and
statistical approach established an upper limit on the production of
light dark matter.
In this work the BDX-MINI is described as a demonstration experiment
that was sensitive to some regions of parameter space already excluded
by other recent, more sensitive experiments in the field.
Although the BDX-MINI might provide the guidance for the next
generation beam dump experiments planned at intense electron beam
facilities, the work presented here still does not demonstrate the
discovery potential of the next generation experiment.
Given this is a test (pilot experimental setup that did not provide a
competitive LDM limit), I expected more discussion on future prospects
i.e. on how this demonstration would scale up to the “full-size”
experiment and what would be theestimates for a competitive detection
sensitivity of the potential future experiment.
I believe that if the manuscript included the discussion on prospects
and sensitivity of the next phase BDX experiment it would meet
requirements for Phys. Rev. D publications. I recommend authors
revisit the manuscript and add a discussion on how the BDX-MINI may
scale up to a “full-seize” BDX experiment with more competitive
sensitivities.


Other comments/questions:

Abstract:
We assume “In some kinematics, …” might read better as “In some
kinematic regions of interest, …”. Please check.

Section I:
Should the “… through direct or indirect annihilation into SM.” be “…
through direct or indirect annihilation into SM particles.”?

Please explain how “ … the outcome of this pilot experiment is worthy
in its own right.”

FIG 1: It would be helpful for a reader to have the electron beam
indicated in the figure, and to mark the BDX-MINI detector location in
Well-1.

Section II:
Temperature and humidity inside the tent recorded, but not mentioning
how/where to use these. How do you calibrate systematics caused by
temperature and humidity change?

640ns readout window is decided in a way that matches the beam window?

Section III:
FIG. 3. It is difficult to read the Y-axis label in the figure. Do you
understand the vertical band at ~0.05 GeV of FIG.3?

Please explain why the fixed coupling constant \epsilon_{0} = 3.87 x
10^-4 was chosen? Why this value?

GEANT4: please include information on GEANT 4 version and its physics
list used in the simulation.

Section IV:
How do you calibrate the detector energy response? Are you using
muon’s dE/dx or some other methods to calibrate the energy scale? What
is it?

What the veto system detection efficiency for signals with < 5 PE? Are
you sensitive to single PE signals in your LDM search?

“The response in the vertical sides of the IV(OV) was measured by
selecting hits in the …”
            What do you mean by hits here? Waveforms? Photon elections?
What’s the definition of efficiency here? Muon veto efficiency?

[Cosmic background] “a possible LDM hit” → you mean an event?

FIG. 6: What’s the definition of sigma here? Could you draw them on
the same plot and add 1 and 2 sigma bands to indicate where the 1 and
2 sigma regions are in the bottom panel?

Are there other beam-correlated backgrounds (such as muons, neutrons)
from electron beam primary and secondary interactions in the target
and surrounding materials?

What FLUKA version did you use for the neutrino background simulation?

It would be important, for neutrino background considerations, to
include a figure that shows a flux and/or energy distribution of
neutrino expected in the detector.

You also say that the “Vertical (cosmic muon) tracks were selected by
requiring a significant release of energy (>6 MeV) in at least one
crystal in the ECal top part and in at least one crystal in the bottom
part.” Is there a potential interaction from so-called “clipping
muons” that deposit a small fraction of energy (< 6 MeV) that would go
undetected with your event selection?

Please clarify if the Fig. 7 is simulation only (e.g. no measured
data)? What is “green” vs “dark green” there? Dark green points
missing from the plot?

Equation (6): are the backgrounds included as bin-to-bin correlated or
uncorrelated? How does the assumption of correlated vs uncorrelated
backgrounds would affect results?

Where are the u^j_b parameters (that you have in Eqution(6)) counted
in Equation(7)? Are they merged into the nuisance parameters?

Table1: Could you talk about how you do the energy calibration
briefly? I.e. what effects are taken into account in your calibration?

FIG. 8 and 9 (also applied to the other simulation plots): The mass
chosen in different plots is different. Is there a reason you did not
use a single mass to draw all the plots for the illustration? What is
the effect of a different mass?

FIG. 8. Is it as expected the detector response alpha_7 is not
monotonic comparing to the others (alpha_1-alpha_7)?

You consider the ECal energy effects on the signal, but the energy
scale variations will affect the background event distribution, and
background rates above the threshold. How is the background treated in
your sensitivity estimate?

FIG.9: Signal energy scale is varied, but how about background energy
scale?

Section V:
Fig. 11 Is there a reference for the thick black lines?

“... the sensitivity is mostly dependent on the choice of the minimum
total energy, and while it depends weakly on the other analysis
parameters.” It does not even depend on your background (neutrino and
muon) modeling? If it is only strongly associated with a single
contribution, would that also indicate some bottleneck or possible
underlying issue, for example, your energy estimation or calibration?

Fig 11 caption: “COHERENT”.

Section VI:
As mentioned above, we expected to see more on prospects and
sensitivity of the next phase BDX experiment. How do we scale up the
BDX-MINI to a next generation experiment?

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