Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) arising in several extensions of the Standard Model of particle physics are one of the leading candidates for cosmological Dark Matter. Currently, a large number of running and projected experiments are aimed to search for di erent WIMP candidates by direct detection of scattering recoil energies of ambient WIMPs o target nuclei in low{background underground laboratory detectors. Using data from such direct Dark Matter detection experiments to determine e.g. the mass and couplings on nucleons is essential for understanding the nature of WIMPs.
In this talk, I will briey review the direct DM detection from the theoretical point of view. Then I will present our model-independent data analysis methods for extracting di erent WIMP properties: the one-dimensional velocity distribution function, the mass and di erent couplings on nucleons by using experimental data directly. These information will allow us not only to constrain the parameter space in di erent extensions of the Standard Model, but also to identify WIMPs among new particles produced at colliders (hopefully in the near future). If possible, I will also demonstrate the use of the AMIDAS (A Model-Independent Data Analysis System) package and website (http://pisrv0.pit.physik.uni-tuebingen.de/darkmatter/amidas/) built based on our model-independent methods.
