The role of ionization electrons in direct dark matter detection

Abstract

In this paper we estimate the event rates of neutralino-nucleus scattering leading to electron emission by the atomic ionization. We find that the branching ratio for detecting electrons vis a vis the traditional neutralino nucleus elastic scattering sensitively depends on the threshold energy. In the case of a light target and a neutralino mass of 100 GeV we estimate it to be around 10 percent assuming a reasonable threshold energy of 250 eV.

Comments: LaTex, 19 pages, 8 PostScript figures