Effective Field Theory of Dark Matter Direct Detection.

摘要

The nature of dark matter is a fascinating mystery that continues to be unsolved. Direct detection expeiments offer the possibility of determining the precise interactions of a dark matter (DM) particle with nuclei. The experiments use different targets, potentially testing various types of interactions between the dark matter particle and the nucleus. Previously, there have been attempts to exploit these differences between targets, in order to reconcile potential signals seen at some experiments with the absence of a signal at others. However, studies are typically performed in a model-driven way, with the goal of putting constraints on a specific particle model. Recently, took a different approach, by considering the leading non-relativistic operators coupling DM to nuclei, and placing bounds on their coefficients. This was done in the context of elastic scattering. In this paper we would like to extend this approach by going beyond the leading operators to include the full set of possible operators in the non-relativistic theory, including momentum- and velocity-dependent operators as well. The goal of this study is to identify all possible elastic DM-nucleus response functions that may be exploited by experimentalists to characterize DM, and to relate these responses to the underlying effective theory operators that mediate the DM-ordinary matter interaction.