Complementarity of dark matter direct detection: the role of bolometric targets

Complementarity of dark matter direct detection: the role of bolometric targets. JCAP. 2013, Vol. 07(2013)028

We study how the combined observation of dark matter in various direct detection
experiments can be used to determine the phenomenological properties ofWIMP dark matter:
mass, spin-dependent (SD) and spin-independent (SI) scattering cross section off nucleons.
A convenient choice of target materials, including nuclei that couple to dark matter particles
through a significantly different ratio of SD vs SI interactions, could break the degeneracies
in the determination of those parameters that a single experiment cannot discriminate. In
this work we investigate different targets that can be used as scintillating bolometers and
could provide complementary information to germanium and xenon detectors. We observe
that Al2O3 and LiF bolometers could allow a good reconstruction of the DM properties over
regions of the parameter space with a SD scattering cross section as small as 10−5 pb and
a SI cross section as small as 5 × 10−10 pb for a 50GeV WIMP. In the case of a CaWO4
bolometer the area in which full complementarity is obtained is smaller but we show that it
can be used to determine the WIMP mass and its SI cross section. For each target we study
the required exposure and background.