Using Effective Operators to Understand CoGeNT and CDMS-Silicon

Understand

Several direct detection experiments have reported positive signals consistent with a dark matter particle with a mass of approximately 7-9 GeV and a spin independent scattering cross section of 2.5-4.8 x 10^-41 cm^2.

• These results do not rise to the level of discovery, but assuming that they are due to dark matter, some questions about the underlying physics can already be addressed.
• In this paper, I apply the effective operator formalism for dark matter-Standard Model interactions to the results of the CoGeNT and CDMS silicon target experiments.
• I demonstrate that only one set of flavor-blind effective operators between dark matter can quarks can be consistent with the reported results in all energy regimes of interest, namely thermal freeze-out, nuclear scattering, indirect detection, and TeV-scale colliders.