Integrating Out Astrophysical Uncertainties

Understand

Underground searches for dark matter involve a complicated interplay of particle physics, nuclear physics, atomic physics and astrophysics.

• We attempt to remove the uncertainties associated with astrophysics by developing the means to map the observed signal in one experiment directly into a predicted rate at another.
• We argue that it is possible to make experimental comparisons that are completely free of astrophysical uncertainties by focusing on {\em integral} quantities, such as $g(v_{min})=\int_{v_{min}} dv\, f(v)/v $ and $\int_{v_{thresh}} dv\, v g(v)$.
• Direct comparisons are possible when the $v_{min}$ space probed by different experiments overlap.