Taming astrophysical bias in direct dark matter searches
  We explore systematic biases in the identification of dark matter in future
direct detection experiments and compare the reconstructed dark matter
properties when assuming a self-consistent dark matter distribution function
and the standard Maxwellian velocity distribution. We find that the systematic
bias on the dark matter mass and cross-section determination arising from wrong
assumptions for its distribution function is of order ~1\sigma. A much larger
systematic bias can arise if wrong assumptions are made on the underlying Milky
Way mass model. However, in both cases the bias is substantially mitigated by
marginalizing over galactic model parameters. We additionally show that the
velocity distribution can be reconstructed in an unbiased manner for typical
dark matter parameters. Our results highlight both the robustness of the dark
matter mass and cross-section determination using the standard Maxwellian
velocity distribution and the importance of accounting for astrophysical
uncertainties in a statistically consistent fashion.
