  We consider the nuclear scattering cross section for the eXciting Dark Matter
(XDM) model. In XDM, the Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) couple to
the Standard Model only via an intermediate light scalar which mixes with the
Higgs: this leads to a suppression in the nuclear scattering cross section
relative to models in which the WIMPs couple to the Higgs directly. We estimate
this suppression factor to be of order 10^(-5). The elastic nuclear scattering
cross section for XDM can also be computed directly: we perform this
computation for XDM coupled to the Higgs sector of the Standard Model and find
a spin-independent cross section in the order of 4 x 10^(-13) pb in the
decoupling limit, which is not within the range of any near-term direct
detection experiments. However, if the XDM dark sector is instead coupled to a
two-Higgs-doublet model, the spin-independent nuclear scattering cross section
can be enhanced by up to four orders of magnitude for large tan(beta), which
should be observable in the upcoming SuperCDMS and ton-scale xenon experiments.
