Isospin-violating dark matter in the light of recent data

Abstract

In scenarios where the dark matter interacts differently with protons and neutrons (isospin-violating dark matter), the interpretation of the experimental limits on the dark matter spin-independent cross section may be significantly modified. On the one hand, the direct detection constraints are shifted depending on the target nucleus, possibly changing the hierarchy among different experiments. On the other hand, the relative strength between the bounds from neutrino detectors and those from direct detection experiments is altered, allowing the former to be more competitive. In this paper, the status of isospin-violating dark matter is assessed in the light of recent data, and the prospects for its detection in the near future are analyzed. We find, for example, that there are regions in the parameter space where IceCube currently provides the most stringent limits on the spin-independent cross section, or others where the expected sensitivity of DEAP-3600 is well above the LUX exclusion limit. Our results highlight the complementarity among different targets in direct detection experiments, and between direct detection and neutrino searches in the quest for a dark matter signal.