Isospin conserving Dark Matter with isospin dependent interaction, and reconciliation of contrasting results from direct Dark Matter experiments

TL;DR

This paper presents a model of isospin-conserving Dark Matter with isospin-dependent interactions, demonstrating how differing couplings to nucleons can reconcile conflicting experimental results.

Contribution

It introduces a simple isospin-conserving Dark Matter model with isospin-dependent interactions, highlighting the importance of model-independent data analysis in experimental comparisons.

Findings

Reconciliation of CRESST and XENON100 results through isospin-dependent couplings

Demonstration that assuming equal couplings can lead to conflicting interpretations

Emphasis on the significance of model-independent analysis in Dark Matter experiments

Abstract

A simple model of Dark Matter (DM) which couples with the two nucleons with different coupling strengths without violating isospin conservation is explored as an example of the importance of keeping the experimental data analysis as model independent as possible. The apparent contrast between the recent CRESST event excess and current XENON100 spin-independent (SI) exclusions is shown to be removed by simply not assuming that the couplings of the DM with the two nucleons are equal.