Signatures of Dark Matter Scattering Inelastically Off Nuclei

Understand

Direct dark matter detection focuses on elastic scattering of dark matter particles off nuclei.

• In this study, we explore inelastic scattering where the nucleus is excited to a low-lying state of 10-100 keV, with subsequent prompt de-excitation.
• We calculate the inelastic structure factors for the odd-mass xenon isotopes based on state-of-the-art large-scale shell-model calculations with chiral effective field theory WIMP-nucleon currents.
• For these cases, we find that the inelastic channel is comparable to or can dominate the elastic channel for momentum transfers around 150 MeV.