Non-relativistic effective theory of dark matter direct detection

TL;DR

This paper develops a non-relativistic effective theory framework for dark matter direct detection, enabling model-independent analysis of recoil spectra and linking experimental results to underlying particle physics models.

Contribution

It introduces a minimal set of operators for describing dark matter-nucleus interactions at low energies, facilitating interpretation of detection experiments without high-energy model assumptions.

Findings

Boundaries on operator coefficients from current null detection results

Identification of distinguishable recoil spectra for different models

Mapping between effective operators and fundamental field theory models

Abstract

Dark matter direct detection searches for signals coming from dark matter scattering against nuclei at a very low recoil energy scale ~ 10 keV. In this paper, a simple non-relativistic effective theory is constructed to describe interactions between dark matter and nuclei without referring to any underlying high energy models. It contains the minimal set of operators that will be tested by direct detection. The effective theory approach highlights the set of distinguishable recoil spectra that could arise from different theoretical models. If dark matter is discovered in the near future in direct detection experiments, a measurement of the shape of the recoil spectrum will provide valuable information on the underlying dynamics. We bound the coefficients of the operators in our non-relativistic effective theory by the null results of current dark matter direct detection experiments. We also discuss the mapping between the non-relativistic effective theory and field theory models or operators, including aspects of the matching of quark and gluon operators to nuclear form factors.