Effective theory of dark matter-nucleon interactions

par Dr Riccardo Catena (Chalmers University)

mercredi 18 nov. 2015, 10:30 → 12:00 Europe/Paris

Grande Salle du Conseil

The experimental technique known as direct detection (DD) will play a pivotal role in shedding light on the nature of dark matter during the next decade. It searches for nuclear recoil events induced by the non-relativistic scattering of Milky Way dark matter particles in low-back ground detectors. At the same time, neutrino telescopes (NT) are complementary to direct detection experiments, as they probe dark matter-nucleon interactions in different environments. An effective field theory approach is a solid strategy to interpret both DD and NT experiments when the momentum transferred in the dark matter scattering by nuclei is small compared to the mass of the particles mediating the interaction. In this talk I compare the non-relativistic effective theory of one-body dark matter-nucleon interactions to current dark matter direct detection experiments and neutrino telescope observations, presenting exclusion limits on the coupling constants of the theory. In the analysis of direct detection experiments, I focus on the interference of different dark matter-nucleon interaction operators, and on predictions observable at directional detectors. Interpreting neutrino telescope observations, I use new nuclear response functions recently derived through nuclear structure calculations.