On the importance of loop-induced spin-independent interactions for dark matter direct detection

Understand

The latest results from LHC searches for jets in association with missing transverse energy place strong bounds on the scattering cross section of dark matter.

• For the case of spin-dependent or momentum suppressed interactions these limits seem to be superior to the bounds from direct detection experiments.
• In this article, we show that loop contributions can significantly alter this conclusion and boost direct detection bounds, whenever they induce spin-independent interactions.
• This effect is most striking for tensor and pseudotensor interactions, which induce magnetic and electric dipole moments at loop level.