A scheme for the extraction of WIMP-nucleon scattering cross sections from total event rates

Abstract

We propose a scheme that allows to analytically determine the three elementary cross sections and connect the solutions to the relative sign between the proton and the neutron spin scattering amplitudes once the measurements of total event rate from three appropriate targets become available. In this way it is thus possible to extract the maximum information on the supersymmetric parameter space obtainable from direct detection experiments, in the case that the dark matter particle is the lightest neutralino. Our scheme is based on suitably normalized form of the isospin momentum dependent structure functions entering in the spin-dependent elastic neutralino-nucleus cross section. We compare these functions with the commonly used ones and discuss their advantages: in particular, these allow in the spin-dependent cross section to factorize the particle physics degrees of freedom from the momentum transfer dependent nuclear structure functions as it happens in the spin-independent cross section with the nuclear form factor.

8 pages, 4 figures. Title, text and references revised and expanded. Added an Appendix explaining the advantages of the normalized spin structure functions. Accepted in PRD

References in corpus (5)

• First Dark Matter Results from the XENON100 Experiment
• Hadronic Uncertainties in the Elastic Scattering of Supersymmetric Dark Matter
• Nuclear spin structure in dark matter search: The finite momentum transfer limit
• WIMP identification through a combined measurement of axial and scalar couplings
• Direct Search for Dark Matter - Striking the Balance - and the Future

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• The Dark Matter Inverse Problem: Extracting Particle Physics from Scattering Events
• On the formalism and upper limits for spin-dependent cross sections in dark matter elastic scattering with nuclei
• New gamma ray signal from gravitationally boosted neutralinos at the galactic center
• Reanalysis of nuclear spin matrix elements for dark matter spin-dependent scattering
• Light WIMP searches involving electron scattering
• Theoretical direct WIMP detection rates for transitions to nuclear excited states
• Inelastic WIMP-nucleus scattering to the first excited state in ${}^{125}$Te
• Renormalization of the Spin-dependent WIMP scattering off nuclei
• Effects of Threshold Energy on Reconstructions of Properties of Low-Mass WIMPs in Direct Dark Matter Detection Experiments