Nuclear proton and neutron distributions in the detection of weak interacting massive particles

Understand

In the evaluation of weak interacting massive particles (WIMPs) detection rates, the WIMP-nucleus cross section is commonly described by using form factors extracted from charge distributions.

• In this work, we use different proton and neutron distributions taken from Hartree-Fock calculations.
• We study the effects of this choice on the total detection rates for six nuclei with different neutron excess, and taken from different regions of the nuclear chart.
• The use of different distributions for protons and neutrons becomes more important if isospin-dependent WIMP-nucleon interactions are considered.