<i>Ab initio</i>
 nuclear response functions for dark matter searches

Gazda, Daniel; Forssén, Christian

doi:10.1103/physrevd.95.103011

Cited by 37 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 81 publications

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“…Accordingly, if the coherent contributions studied in this paper are strongly suppressed, the identification of the underlying quarklevel interactions becomes even more challenging. On the other hand, progress in ab initio nuclear theory paves the way towards fully consistent structure factors from many-body calculations based on ChEFT [51,59,60,[77][78][79]. Such improved nuclear structure factors, including their momentum-dependence, will further help distinguish among possible BSM scenarios.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The limitation of using a restricted configuration space stems from the difficulty to solve the nuclear many-body problem in a nontruncated space for heavier nuclei. For nuclear targets used in direct detection experiments, cal-culations of structure factors without such truncations exist up to 4 He [51,59,60] and could be performed in the near future up to 40 Ca. Second, calculations must use an effective interaction appropriate for such a configuration space.…”

Section: Nuclear Structure Calculationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such consistent studies are presently only available for few-nucleon systems [59]. In addition, nuclear response functions based on nuclear states obtained using ChEFT interactions are available for light nuclei [60]. However, such very light isotopes are not used in leading direct detection experiments.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Nuclear structure factors for general spin-independent WIMP-nucleus scattering

et al. 2019

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We present nuclear structure factors that describe the generalized spin-independent coupling of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) to nuclei. Our results are based on state-of-the-art nuclear structure calculations using the large-scale nuclear shell model. Starting from quark-and gluon-level operators, we consider all possible coherently enhanced couplings of spin-1/2 and spin-0 WIMPs to one and two nucleons up to third order in chiral effective field theory. This includes a comprehensive discussion of the structure factors corresponding to the leading two-nucleon currents covering, for the first time, the contribution of spin-2 operators. We provide results for the most relevant nuclear targets considered in present and planned dark matter direct detection experiments: fluorine, silicon, argon, and germanium, complementing our previous work on xenon. All results are also publicly available in a Python

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Nuclear Structure Calculationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Nuclear structure factors for general spin-independent WIMP-nucleus scattering

et al. 2019

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“…Theoretically, light nuclei are great testing laboraties as they can be described from first principles to high accuracies. On the other hand, for example, helium isotopes are potential experimental targets [17][18][19] as they are sensitive to relatively light DM (below 10 GeV) [20] and they can potentially be used for directional detection purposes [21,22]. Our calculations provide direct input for the interpretation of these experiments.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

First-principle calculations of dark matter scattering off light nuclei

2017

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We study the scattering of Dark Matter particles off various light nuclei within the framework of chiral effective field theory. We focus on scalar interactions and include one-and two-nucleon scattering processes whose form and strength are dictated by chiral symmetry. The nuclear wave functions are calculated from chiral effective field theory interactions as well and we investigate the convergence pattern of the chiral expansion in the nuclear potential and the Dark Matter-nucleus currents. This allows us to provide a systematic uncertainty estimate of our calculations. We provide results for 2 H, 3 H, and 3 He nuclei which are theoretically interesting and the latter is a potential target for experiments. We show that two-nucleon currents can be systematically included but are generally smaller than predicted by power counting and suffer from significant theoretical uncertainties even in light nuclei. We demonstrate that accurate high-order wave functions are necessary in order to incorporate two-nucleon currents. We discuss scenarios in which one-nucleon contributions are suppressed such that higher-order currents become dominant.

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“…Subleading corrections to WIMP-nucleus scattering are most conveniently analyzed in chiral EFT [30,[36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44] (see also related work on WIMP-nuclear response calculations of A ≤ 4 nuclei [45] and on using chiral EFT for WIMPnucleon interactions [46,47]) and can be classified into the three categories shown in Fig. 1.…”

Section: Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Discriminating WIMP-nucleus response functions in present and future XENON-like direct detection experiments

et al. 2018

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The standard interpretation of direct-detection limits on dark matter involves particular assumptions of the underlying WIMP-nucleus interaction, such as, in the simplest case, the choice of a Helm form factor that phenomenologically describes an isoscalar spin-independent interaction. In general, the interaction of dark matter with the target nuclei may well proceed via different mechanisms, which would lead to a different shape of the corresponding nuclear structure factors as a function of the momentum transfer q. We study to what extent different WIMP-nucleus responses can be differentiated based on the q-dependence of their structure factors (or "form factors"). We assume an overall strength of the interaction consistent with present spin-independent limits and consider an exposure corresponding to XENON1T-like, XENONnT-like, and DARWIN-like direct detection experiments. We find that, as long as the interaction strength does not lie too much below current limits, the DARWIN settings allow a conclusive discrimination of many different response functions based on their q-dependence, with immediate consequences for elucidating the nature of dark matter.

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Ab initio nuclear response functions for dark matter searches

Cited by 37 publications

References 81 publications

Nuclear structure factors for general spin-independent WIMP-nucleus scattering

Nuclear structure factors for general spin-independent WIMP-nucleus scattering

First-principle calculations of dark matter scattering off light nuclei

Discriminating WIMP-nucleus response functions in present and future XENON-like direct detection experiments

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