Nuclear proton and neutron distributions in the detection of weak interacting massive particles

Abstract

In the evaluation of weak interacting massive particles (WIMPs) detection rates, the WIMP-nucleus cross section is commonly described by using form factors extracted from charge distributions. In this work, we use different proton and neutron distributions taken from Hartree-Fock calculations. We study the effects of this choice on the total detection rates for six nuclei with different neutron excess, and taken from different regions of the nuclear chart. The use of different distributions for protons and neutrons becomes more important if isospin-dependent WIMP-nucleon interactions are considered. The need of distinct descriptions of proton and neutron densities reduces with the lowering of the detection energy thresholds.