Model-independent comparison of annual modulation and total rate with
  direct detection experiments
  The relative sensitivity of different direct detection experiments depends
sensitively on the astrophysical distribution and particle physics nature of
dark matter, prohibiting a model-independent comparison. The situation changes
fundamentally if two experiments employ the same target material. We show that
in this case one can compare measurements of an annual modulation and exclusion
bounds on the total rate while making no assumptions on astrophysics and no (or
only very general) assumptions on particle physics. In particular, we show that
the dark matter interpretation of the DAMA/LIBRA signal can be conclusively
tested with COSINUS, a future experiment employing the same target material. We
find that if COSINUS excludes a dark matter scattering rate of about
$0.01\,\text{kg}^{-1}\,\text{days}^{-1}$ with an energy threshold of $1.8\,$keV
and resolution of $0.2\,$keV, it will rule out all explanations of DAMA/LIBRA
in terms of dark matter scattering off sodium and/or iodine.
