Scatttering of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles from Ge73

TL;DR

This paper develops a hybrid nuclear modeling method to accurately predict how Ge73 responds to hypothetical dark matter particles, focusing on its complex shape and spin structure.

Contribution

It introduces a hybrid variational approach that restores rotational invariance before state mixing, improving predictions of nuclear responses relevant to dark matter detection.

Findings

Accurately predicts quadrupole and magnetic moments of Ge73.

Models the spin-dependent neutralino cross sections effectively.

Highlights the impact of nuclear shape and triaxiality on dark matter interactions.

Abstract

We use a "hybrid" method, mixing variationally-determined triaxial nuclear Slater determinants, to calculate the response of Ge73 to hypothetical dark-matter particles such as neutralinos. The method is a hybrid in that rotational invariance is approximately restored prior to variation and then fully restored before the mixing of intrinsic states. We discuss such features of Ge73 as shape coexistence and triaxiality, and their effects on spin-dependent neutralino cross sections. Our calculations yield a satisfactory quadrupole moment and an accurate magnetic moment in this very complicated nucleus, suggesting that the spin structure and thus the axial--vector response to dark matter particles is modeled well.