The Astrophysical Uncertainties Of Dark Matter Direct Detection Experiments

Abstract

The effects of astrophysical uncertainties on the exclusion limits at dark matter direct detection experiments are investigated for three scenarios: elastic, momentum dependent and inelastically scattering dark matter. We find that varying the dark matter galactic escape velocity and the Sun's circular velocity can lead to significant variations in the exclusion limits for light ($\lesssim 10$ GeV) elastic and inelastic scattering dark matter. We also calculate the limits using one hundred velocity distributions extracted from the Via Lactea II and GHALO N-body simulations and find that a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution with the same astrophysical parameters generally sets less constraining limits. The elastic and momentum dependent limits remain robust for masses $\gtrsim 50$ GeV under variations of the astrophysical parameters and the form of the velocity distribution.

14 pages, 7 figures; v2 final corrected version to appear in Physical Review D; v3 corrected a typo in Eqn. (B4)

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• Dependence of direct detection signals on the WIMP velocity distribution
• Mixed dark matter from technicolor
• Prospects For Identifying Dark Matter With CoGeNT
• AMEND: A Model Explaining Neutrino masses and Dark matter testable at the LHC and MEG
• Exclusion limits from data of directional Dark Matter detectors
• Sterile neutrino dark matter, CDMS-II and a light Higgs boson
• Exploring SUSY light Higgs boson scenarios via dark matter experiments
• Naturalness of electroweak physics within minimal supergravity
• Neutralino dark matter with a Light Higgs