Impact of shell model interactions on WIMP-nucleus scattering observables for silicon and germanium targets

TL;DR

This paper investigates how different nuclear shell model interactions influence dark matter detection signals in silicon and germanium detectors, highlighting the importance of nuclear modeling uncertainties in interpreting experimental results.

Contribution

It provides an analysis of nuclear shell model interaction effects on WIMP-nucleus scattering responses for silicon and germanium, emphasizing their impact on detection rate predictions.

Findings

Nuclear uncertainties affect scattering rate estimates.

Shell model interaction choice influences nuclear response calculations.

Uncertainties are significant at the level of exclusion limits.

Abstract

The nature of dark matter (DM) remains one of the biggest mysteries in physics today. Dark matter direct detection experiments look for nuclear recoil signals from DM-nucleus elastic scattering, which can be used to characterise DM. Nuclear modelling of the target nucleus may impact the predicted DM-nucleus scattering rates, and affect interpretation of experimental signals. In this work, we investigate the impact of nuclear shell model interactions on DM nuclear responses for silicon and germanium targets using a SuperCDMS-like experimental parameters. Nuclear uncertainties resulting from shell model interaction choice in the nuclear form factors are roughly retained at the scattering rate and exclusion limit levels for certain nuclear responses.