Assessing Near-Future Direct Dark Matter Searches with Benchmark-Free Forecasting

Forecasting the signal discrimination power of dark matter (DM) searches is commonly limited to a set of arbitrary benchmark points. We introduce new methods for benchmark-free forecasting that instead allow an exhaustive exploration and visualization of the phenomenological distinctiveness of DM models, based on standard hypothesis testing. Using this method, we reassess the signal discrimination power of future liquid xenon and argon direct DM searches. We quantify the parameter regions where various nonrelativistic effective operators, millicharged DM, and magnetic dipole DM can be discriminated, and where upper limits on the DM mass can be found. We find that including an argon target substantially improves the prospects for reconstructing the DM properties. We also show that only in a small region with DM masses in the range 20-100 GeV and DM-nucleon cross sections a factor of a few below current bounds can near-future xenon and argon detectors discriminate both the DM-nucleon interaction and the DM mass simultaneously. In all other regions only one or the other can be obtained.