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arXiv · 1812.05617

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

Martin Hoferichter·Philipp Klos·Javier Menéndez·Achim Schwenk
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Abstract

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 notebook.

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Martin Hoferichter, Philipp Klos, Javier Menéndez, Achim Schwenk. 2018-12-13. Nuclear structure factors for general spin-independent WIMP-nucleus scattering. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.99.055031

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