Complementarity of Dark Matter Direct Detection Targets

Understand

We investigate the reconstruction capabilities of Dark Matter mass and spin-independent cross-section from future ton-scale direct detection experiments using germanium, xenon or argon as targets.

• Adopting realistic values for the exposure, energy threshold and resolution of Dark Matter experiments which will come online within 5 to 10 years, the degree of complementarity between different targets is quantified.
• We investigate how the uncertainty in the astrophysical parameters controlling the local Dark Matter density and velocity distribution affects the reconstruction.
• For a 50 GeV WIMP, astrophysical uncertainties degrade the accuracy in the mass reconstruction by up to a factor of $\sim 4$ for xenon and germanium, compared to the case when astrophysical quantities are fixed.