Nuclear Physics of Dark Matter Detection

We describe the elastic scattering of weakly interacting dark matter particles from nuclei, with laboratory detection in mind. We focus on the lightest neutralino (a neutral fermion predicted by supersymmetry) as a likely candidate and discuss the physics needed to calculate its elastic scattering cross section and interpret experimental results. Particular emphasis is placed on a proper description of the structure of the proposed detector nuclei. We include a brief discussion of expected count rates in some detectors.