Understanding WIMP-baryon interactions with direct detection: A Roadmap

Understand

We study prospects of dark-matter direct-detection searches for probing non-relativistic effective theory for WIMP-baryon scattering.

• We simulate a large set of noisy recoil-energy spectra for different scattering scenarios (beyond the standard momentum-independent contact interaction), for Generation 2 and futuristic experiments.
• We analyze these simulations and quantify the probability of successfully identifying the operator governing the scattering, if a WIMP signal is observed.
• We find that the success rate depends on a combination of factors: the WIMP mass, the mediator mass, the type of interaction, and the experimental energy window.