Large-$N_c$ constraints for elastic dark matter-light nucleus scattering in pionless effective field theory

Abstract

Recent proposals for the use of light nuclei as dark matter direct detection targets necessitate a strong theoretical understanding of the nuclear physics involved. We perform relevant calculations for dark matter-light nucleus scattering in a combined pionless effective field theory and large-$N_c$ expansion, where $N_c$ is the number of quark colors. We include a general set of one-nucleon currents that have been used in other effective theories, as well as novel two-nucleon contact currents. First, we obtain constraints for the relative sizes of the dark matter couplings to the one- and two-nucleon currents through the large-$N_c$ expansion. Then, we use these constraints to make predictions for the relative sizes of spin-dependent and spin-independent cross sections for dark matter scattering off of a nucleon, a deuteron, a triton, and helium-3.

27 pages, 9 figures, version accepted for publication in Physical Review C, substantial revisions and additions compared to version 1

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Cited by in corpus (4)

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• Uncertainties on the EFT coupling limits for direct dark matter detection experiments stemming from uncertainties of target properties
• Dark matter scattering off ${}^4$He in chiral effective field theory
• Uncertainties in tellurium-based dark matter searches stemming from nuclear structure uncertainties