What can(not) be measured with ton-scale dark matter direct detection experiments

Understand

Direct searches for dark matter have prompted in recent years a great deal of excitement within the astroparticle physics community, but the compatibility between signal claims and null results of different experiments is far from being a settled issue.

• In this context, we study here the prospects for constraining the dark matter parameter space with the next generation of ton-scale detectors.
• Using realistic experimental capabilities for a wide range of targets (including fluorine, sodium, argon, germanium, iodine and xenon), the role of target complementarity is analysed in detail while including the impact of astrophysical uncertainties in a self-consistent manner.
• We show explicitly that a multi-target signal in future direct detection facilities can determine the sign of the ratio of scalar couplings $f_n/f_p$, but not its scale.