Analysis strategies for general spin-independent WIMP-nucleus scattering
Abstract
We propose a formalism for the analysis of direct-detection dark-matter searches that covers all coherent responses for scalar and vector interactions and incorporates QCD constraints imposed by chiral symmetry, including all one- and two-body WIMP-nucleon interactions up to third order in chiral effective field theory. One of the free parameters in the WIMP-nucleus cross section corresponds to standard spin-independent searches, but in general different combinations of new-physics couplings are probed. We identify the interference with the isovector counterpart of the standard spin-independent response and two-body currents as the dominant corrections to the leading spin-independent structure factor, and discuss the general consequences for the interpretation of direct-detection experiments, including minimal extensions of the standard spin-independent analysis. Fits for all structure factors required for the scattering off xenon targets are provided based on state-of-the-art nuclear shell-model calculations.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1605.08043,
title = {Analysis strategies for general spin-independent WIMP-nucleus scattering},
author = {Martin Hoferichter and Philipp Klos and Javier Menéndez and Achim Schwenk},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1605.08043},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
20 pages, 7 figures; v2 includes the two-body current related to the trace anomaly of the QCD energy-momentum tensor