The neutrino roof: Single-scatter ceilings in dark matter direct detection

Abstract: We identify the maximum cross sections probed by single-scatter WIMP" searches in dark matter direct detection. Due to Poisson fluctuations in scatter multiplicity, these ceilings scale logarithmically with mass for heavy dark matter and often lie in regions probed by multiscatter searches. Using a generalized formula for single-scatter event rates we recast WIMP searches by the quintal-to-tonne scale detectors XENON1T, XENONnT, LZ, PANDAX-II, PANDAX-4T, DarkSide-50 and DEAP-3600 to obtain ceilings and floors up to a few $10^{17}$ GeV mass and $10^{-22}$ cm$^2$ per-nucleus cross section. We do this for coherent, geometric, isospin-violating xenophobic and argophobic spin-independent scattering, and neutron-only and proton-only spin-dependent scattering. Future large-exposure detectors would register an almost irreducible background of atmospheric neutrinos that would determine a dark matter sensitivity ceiling that we call theneutrino roof", in analogy with the well-studied ``neutrino floor". Accounting for this background, we estimate the reaches of the 10$-$100 tonne scale DarkSide-20k, DARWIN/XLZD, PANDAX-xT, and Argo, which would probe many decades of unconstrained parameter space up to the Planck mass, as well as of $10^3-10^4$ tonne scale noble liquid detectors that have been proposed in synergy with neutrino experiments.