The role of nuclear form factors in Dark Matter calculations

The momentum transfer dependence of the total cross section for elastic scattering of cold dark matter candidates, i.e. lightest supermymmetric particle (LSP), with nuclei is examined. We find that even though the energy transfer is small ($\le 100 KeV$) the momentum transfer can be quite big for large mass of the LSP and heavy nuclei. The total cross section can in such instances be reduced by a factor of about five.