Halo-independent bounds on the non-relativistic effective theory of WIMP-nucleon scattering from direct detection and neutrino observations

TL;DR

This paper derives halo-independent bounds on WIMP-nucleon couplings by combining direct detection and neutrino telescope data, revealing how assumptions about the dark matter halo affect constraints across different WIMP masses.

Contribution

It introduces a method to set halo-independent bounds on all 28 WIMP-nucleon couplings using combined experimental data, considering specific astrophysical and particle physics assumptions.

Findings

Bounds are moderately relaxed (factor ~2) at low and high WIMP masses.

In the 10-200 GeV range, bounds can be relaxed by up to 10^3.

Spin-dependent proton coupling bounds are less affected by halo assumptions.

Abstract

We combine experimental constraints from direct detection searches and from neutrino telescopes looking for WIMP annihilations in the Sun to derive halo-independent bounds on each of the 28 WIMP-proton and WIMP-neutron couplings of the effective non-relativistic Hamiltonian that drives the scattering process off nuclei of a WIMP of spin 1/2. The method assumes that the velocity distribution is normalized to one and homogeneous at the the solar system scale, as well as equilibrium between WIMP capture and annihilation in the Sun, and requires to fix the WIMP annihilation channels (we assume $b\bar{b}$). We consider a single non-vanishing coupling at a time, and find that for most of the couplings the degree of relaxation of the halo-independent bounds compared to those obtained by assuming the Standard Halo Model is with few exceptions relatively moderate in the low and high WIMP mass regimes, where it can be as small as a factor of $\simeq 2$, while in the intermediate mass range between 10 GeV and 200 GeV it can be as large as $\sim 10^3$. An exception to this general pattern, with more moderate values of the bound relaxation, is observed in the case of spin-dependent WIMP-proton couplings with no or a comparatively small momentum suppression, for which WIMP capture is strongly enhanced because it is driven by scattering events off $^1H$, which is the most abundant target in the Sun. Within this class of operators the relaxation is particularly small for interactions that are driven by only the velocity-dependent term, for which the solar capture signal is enhanced compared to the direct detection one, thanks to the highest speed of scattering WIMPs within the Sun due to the larger gravitational acceleration.