Halo-independent methods for inelastic dark matter scattering

Abstract

We present halo-independent methods to analyze the results of dark matter\ndirect detection experiments assuming inelastic scattering. We focus on the\nannual modulation signal reported by DAMA/LIBRA and present three different\nhalo-independent tests. First, we compare it to the upper limit on the\nunmodulated rate from XENON100 using (a) the trivial requirement that the\namplitude of the annual modulation has to be smaller than the bound on the\nunmodulated rate, and (b) a bound on the annual modulation amplitude based on\nan expansion in the Earth's velocity. The third test uses the special\npredictions of the signal shape for inelastic scattering and allows for an\ninternal consistency check of the data without referring to any astrophysics.\nWe conclude that a strong conflict between DAMA/LIBRA and XENON100 in the\nframework of spin-independent inelastic scattering can be established\nindependently of the local properties of the dark matter halo.\n