Estimating the Spin-Independent WIMP-Nucleon Coupling from Direct Dark Matter Detection Data

Abstract

Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) are one of the leading candidates for Dark Matter. For understanding the nature of WIMPs and identifying them among new particles produced at colliders (hopefully in the near future), determinations of their mass and couplings on nucleons from direct Dark Matter detection experiments are essential. Based on our model-independent method for determining the WIMP mass from experimental data, I present a way to also estimate the spin-independent (SI) WIMP-nucleon coupling by using measured recoil energies directly. This method is independent of the velocity distribution of halo WIMPs as well as (practically) of the as yet unknown WIMP mass. In a background-free environment, for a WIMP mass of ~ 100 GeV the SI WIMP-nucleon coupling could in principle be estimated with an uncertainty of ~ 15% by using 2 (or 3) x 50 events from experiments.

29 pages, 20 eps figures; v2: typos fixed, references added and updated, revised version

References in corpus (9)

• Determining the WIMP mass using direct detection experiments
• Spin Dependence of Dark Matter Scattering
• Determining the WIMP mass using the complementarity between direct and indirect searches and the ILC
• Discriminating dark matter candidates using direct detection
• The Dark Matter Density in the Solar Neighborhood reconsidered
• Determining Ratios of WIMP-Nucleon Cross Sections from Direct Dark Matter Detection Data
• Effects of Residue Background Events in Direct Dark Matter Detection Experiments on the Estimation of the Spin-Independent WIMP-Nucleon Coupling
• Extracting Dark Matter Properties Model-Independently from Direct Detection Experiments
• Effects of Residue Background Events in Direct Detection Experiments on Determining Properties of Halo Dark Matter

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Prospects for dark matter detection with IceCube in the context of the CMSSM
• What can(not) be measured with ton-scale dark matter direct detection experiments
• Determining Ratios of WIMP-Nucleon Cross Sections from Direct Dark Matter Detection Data
• Effects of Residue Background Events in Direct Dark Matter Detection Experiments on the Estimation of the Spin-Independent WIMP-Nucleon Coupling
• Uploading User-Defined Functions onto the AMIDAS Website
• Effects of Residue Background Events in Direct Dark Matter Detection Experiments on the Determinations of Ratios of WIMP-Nucleon Cross Sections
• AMIDAS-II: Upgrade of the AMIDAS Package and Website for Direct Dark Matter Detection Experiments and Phenomenology
• Background effects on reconstructed WIMP couplings