Impact of nuclear structure from shell model calculations on nuclear responses to WIMP elastic scattering for $^{19}$F and $^{nat}$Xe targets

TL;DR

This paper investigates how nuclear structure, modeled via shell calculations, influences the nuclear responses in WIMP elastic scattering for fluorine-19 and natural xenon targets, highlighting the importance of nuclear details in dark matter detection.

Contribution

It demonstrates that nuclear response components are sensitive to nuclear structure details, emphasizing the need for accurate nuclear modeling in WIMP scattering analyses.

Findings

Nuclear responses vary significantly with nuclear structure details.

Shell model calculations reveal sensitivities in response components.

Results impact interpretation of dark matter detection experiments.

Abstract

Non-relativistic effective field theory (NREFT) is one approach used for describing the interaction of WIMPs with ordinary matter. Among other factors, these interactions are expected to be affected by the structure of the atomic nuclei in the target. The sensitivity of the nuclear response components of the WIMP-nucleus scattering amplitude is investigated using shell model calculations for $^{19}$F and $^{nat}$Xe. Resulting integrated nuclear response values are shown to be sensitive to some specifics of the nuclear structure calculations.