  Dark matter direct detection searches for signals coming from dark matter
scattering against nuclei at a very low recoil energy scale ~ 10 keV. In this
paper, a simple non-relativistic effective theory is constructed to describe
interactions between dark matter and nuclei without referring to any underlying
high energy models. It contains the minimal set of operators that will be
tested by direct detection. The effective theory approach highlights the set of
distinguishable recoil spectra that could arise from different theoretical
models. If dark matter is discovered in the near future in direct detection
experiments, a measurement of the shape of the recoil spectrum will provide
valuable information on the underlying dynamics. We bound the coefficients of
the operators in our non-relativistic effective theory by the null results of
current dark matter direct detection experiments. We also discuss the mapping
between the non-relativistic effective theory and field theory models or
operators, including aspects of the matching of quark and gluon operators to
nuclear form factors.
