Effects of nuclear deformation on the form factor for direct dark matter   detection
  For direct dark matter detections, to extract useful information about the fundamental interaction from data, it is crucial to properly determine the nuclear form factor. The form factor for spin-independent cross section of collisions between dark matter particle and nucleus is thoroughly studied by many authors. When the analysis was carried out, the nuclei are always supposed to be spherically symmetric. In this work, we investigate the effects of deformation of nuclei from a spherical shape to an elliptical shape on the form factor. Our results indicate that as long as the ellipticity is not too large, such effects cannot cause any substantial effects, especially as the nuclei are randomly orientated in a room temperature circumstance one can completely neglect them. 
Ya-Zheng Chen, Jun-Mou Chen, Yan-An Luo, Hong Shen, Xue-Qian Li
hep-ph