Impact of shell model interactions on WIMP-nucleus scattering observables for silicon and germanium targets

¹ Department of Fundamental and Theoretical Physics, Research School of Physics, Australian National University, ACT, 2601, Australia
² Department of Nuclear Physics and Accelerator Applications, Research School of Physics, Australian National University, ACT, 2601, Australia
³ ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics, Australia
⁴ Department of Physics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 1A7, Canada

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Published online: 13 May 2026

Abstract

The nature of dark matter (DM) remains one of the biggest mysteries in physics today. Dark matter direct detection experiments look for nuclear recoil signals from DM-nucleus elastic scattering, which can be used to characterise DM. Nuclear modelling of the target nucleus may impact the predicted DM-nucleus scattering rates, and affect interpretation of experimental signals. In this work, we investigate the impact of nuclear shell model interactions on DM nuclear responses for silicon and germanium targets using a SuperCDMS-like experimental parameters. Nuclear uncertainties resulting from shell model interaction choice in the nuclear form factors are roughly retained at the scattering rate and exclusion limit levels for certain nuclear responses.