3. The target classes

The basic hope of direct detection experiments is that the DM particles from the galactic halo occasionally collide with ordinary particles, see e.g. [Nobile2021]. The original target of direct DM searches were nuclear recoils. Later on also electron targets gained more and more attention in the context of sub-GeV dark matter [Essig2012].

In obscura each target type is represented by a class, that can e.g. be passed to the cross section functions of the DM_Particle class, see 4. The DM_Particle classes.

Nuclear targets

For nuclear recoil experiments, we define two target classes, Isotope and Nucleus that are declared in /include/obscura/Target_Nucleus.hpp.

The `Isotope` class

A nuclear isotope is characterized by the number Z of protons and A of nucleons (protons and neutrons), its mass, spin, and average spin contribution for protons and neutrons as required e.g. in the context of spin-dependent nuclear interactions.

The `Nucleus` class

In addition to Isotope, we also define a Nucleus class which mainly consists of a number of isotopes with given relative abundances.

Construction of nuclear targets

There are different ways to construct instances of Isotope and Nucleus.

Example: Assume we are interested in oxygen as a target, either the isotope O-16 or the element of various isotopes.

#include "obscura/Target_Nucleus.hpp"

// ...

// We can define O-16 via the constructor.
Isotope oxygen_16(8,16);

This instance of an oxygen isotope however has no knowledge of e.g. its spin or relative abundance in nature.

For this purpose, obscura contains a nuclear data set, see /data/Nuclear_Data.txt ([Bednyakov2005] [Klos2013]), which can be accessed through the following function defined in Target_Nucleus.hpp.

extern Isotope Get_Isotope(unsigned int Z, unsigned int A);
extern Nucleus Get_Nucleus(unsigned int Z);
extern Nucleus Get_Nucleus(std::string name);

Using these functions, we can construct isotopes and nuclei simply as

#include "obscura/Target_Nucleus.hpp"

// ...

Isotope oxygen_16 = Get_Isotope(8,16);
Nucleus oxygen = Get_Nucleus(8);
Nucleus oxygen_alternative = Get_Nucleus("O");

The last two lines construct an instance of the Nucleus class containing all isotopes of oxygen including their relative abundance, spin, and average spin contribution of protons and neutrons.

Electron targets in atoms

For sub-GeV DM searches, an important target are electrons bound in atoms [Essig2012]. To take into account the fact that electrons are bound states, we need to evaluate the ionization form factor or atomic response function for each electronic orbital [Catena2019].

The target classes for atomic electrons are declared in /include/obscura/Target_Atom.hpp.

The `Atomic_Electron` class

The first target class in this context is Atomic_Electron.

By constructing an instance of this class, the tabulated ionization form factor is imported from /data/Form_Factors_Ionization/.

The `Atom` class

Having target classes for nuclei and bound electrons, we can combine them into a single atomic target, consisting of a nucleus and a number of bound electrons.

Included ionization form factors

At this point, obscura comes with the ionization form factors of

Xenon (5p, 5s, 4d, 4p, 4s)
Argon (3p, 3s, 2p, 2s, 1s)

The tables can be found under /data/Form_Factors_Ionization/. They have been tabulated using the DarkARC code as described in detail in [Catena2019].

The easiest way to access the ionization form factors is by constructing an instance of Atom, as seen in this example.

#include "libphysica/Natural_Units.hpp"

#include "obscura/Target_Atom.hpp"

using namespace libphysica::natural_units;
// ...

Atom xenon("Xe");
Atom argon("Ar");

// For example, to access the ionization form factor of xenon's 5s (quantum numbers n=5, l=0) orbital for a given momentum transfer q and energy E_e:
int n = 5; int l = 0;
double q = 0.5 * keV;
double E_e = 10.0 * eV;

std::cout << xenon.Electron(n, l).Ionization_Form_Factor(q, E_e) << std::endl;

Electron targets in crystals

One of the most important targets for sub-GeV DM detectors are crystals, such as e.g. semiconductors [Essig2016]. The electronic properties of the target material is encapsulated in the crystal form factor which is tabulated and can be found in /data/Semiconductors/. The included crystals are

Silicon semiconductors
Germanium semiconductors

The tables have been generated using QEdark, a module of Quantum ESPRESSO.

Also for crystals, obscura contains a target class Crystal declared in /include/obscura/Target_Crystal.hpp.

The crystal form factor, similarly to the ionization form factors, are imported by the class constructor. Here is an example of how to access the crystal form factor.

#include "libphysica/Natural_Units.hpp"

#include "obscura/Target_Crystal.hpp"

using namespace libphysica::natural_units;

// ...

Crystal silicon("Si");
Crystal germanium("Ge");

double q = 0.5 * keV;
double E_e = 10.0 * eV;

std::cout << silicon.Crystal_Form_Factor(q, E_e) << std::endl;
std::cout << germanium.Crystal_Form_Factor(q, E_e) << std::endl;