Model-independent form factors for spin-independent neutralino–nucleon scattering from elastic electron scattering data
By G. Dūda, Ann Kemper, P. Gondolo. 2006
146 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Theoretical calculations of neutralino–nucleon interaction rates with various nuclei are of great interest to direct dark matter searches such as CDMS, EDELWEISS, ZEPLIN and other experiments since they are used to establish upper bounds on the WIMP–proton cross section. These interaction rates and cross sections are generally computed with standard, one- or two-parameter model-dependent nuclear form factors, which may not exactly mirror the actual form factor for the particular nucleus in question. As is well known, elastic electron scattering can allow for very precise determinations of nuclear form factors and hence nuclear charge densities for spherical or near-spherical nuclei. We use charge densities derived from elastic electron scattering data to calculate model-independent, analytic form factors for various target nuclei important in dark matter searches, such as Si, Ge, S, Ca and others. We have found that for nuclear recoils in the range of 1–100 keV significant differences in cross sections and rates exist when the model-independent form factors are used: at 30 keV nuclear recoil the form factors squared differ by a factor of 1.06 for 28Si, 1.11 for 40Ca, 1.27 for 70Ge and 1.92 for 129Xe. We show the effect of different form factors on the upper limit on the WIMP–proton cross section obtained with a hypothetical 70Ge detector during a 50 kg-d effective exposure. Helm form factors with various parameter choices differ at most by 10–20% from the best (Fourier–Bessel) form factor, and can approach it to better than 1% if the parameters are chosen to mimic the actual nuclear density.
Subfields: Nuclear and High Energy Physics
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1b9e57ec290139be3aa9531e61a9ff3049668366
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In Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Citations in the corpus
- Liquid noble gas detectors for low energy particle physics (2012, background): “These calculations must take into account the weak nuclear form factor, which decreases with transferred momentum much more rapidly for xenon than for argon [21, 31, 32, 33].”
- Non-relativistic effective theory of dark matter direct detection (2010, background): “[28, 29] for more recent discussions of the status of our knowledge of the SI and SD form factors in various isotopes.”
- Colloquium: Annual modulation of dark matter (2013, background): “Further details on SI form factors can be found in Lewin and Smith (1996) and Duda, Kemper, and Gondolo (2007).”
- The waning of the WIMP? A review of models, searches, and constraints (2017, background): “In particular, the common assumptions are that there is a smooth halo of DM particles in our galaxy well described by a Maxwellian velocity distribution [76–78], that the nucleus can be treated as a hard sphere as indicated by the Helm form factor [70], and that the WIMP-nucleon scattering is elasti”
- Dark matter direct detection signals inferred from a cosmological N-body simulation with baryons (2009, methodology): “For simplicity we use the same form factor for all targets (more accurate form factor are off by at most O(20%), for some targets and at large recoil energies [121]).”
- Characterising dark matter searches at colliders and direct detection experiments: vector mediators (2014, unknown): “where μnχ is the DM-nucleon reduced mass, A ≈ 131 is the atomic number of xenon, F (ER) is the Helm nuclear form factor [92], S(ER) is the spin structure function [93], J is the nucleus spin, the sum extends over all isotopes with non-zero spin and fi is the fractional abundance of the ith isotope w”