Large- Nc constraints for elastic dark-matter-light-nucleus scattering in pionless effective field theory

Recent proposals for the use of light nuclei as dark-matter direct detection targets necessitate a strong theoretical understanding of the nuclear physics involved. We perform relevant calculations for dark-matter-light-nucleus scattering in a combined pionless effective field theory and large-Nc expansion, where Nc is the number of quark colors. We include a general set of one-nucleon currents that have been used in other effective theories, as well as novel two-nucleon contact currents. First, we obtain constraints for the relative sizes of the dark-matter couplings to the one- and two-nucleon currents through the large-Nc expansion. Then, we use these constraints to make predictions for the relative sizes of spin-dependent and spin-independent cross sections for dark-matter scattering off of a nucleon, a deuteron, a triton, and helium-3.

Duke Scholars

Author Son Nguyen