  The momentum transfer dependence of the total cross section for elastic
scattering of cold dark matter candidates, i.e. lightest supersymmetric
particle (LSP), with nuclei is examined. The presented calculations of the
event rates refer to a number of representative nuclear targets throughout the
periodic table and have been obtained in a relatively wide phenomenologically
allowed SUSY parameter space. For the coherent cross sections it is shown that,
since the momentum transfer can be quite big for large mass of the LSP and
heavy nuclei even though the energy transfer is small ($\le 100 KeV$), the
total cross section can in such instances be reduced by a factor of about five.
For the spin induced cross section of odd-A nuclear targets, as is the case of
$^{207}Pb$ studied in this work, we found that the reduction is less
pronounced, since the high multipoles tend to enhance the cross section as the
momentum transfer increases (for LSP $mass < 200 GeV$) and partially cancell
the momentum retardation. The effect of the Earth's revolution around the sun
on these event rates is also studied by folding with a Maxwellian LSP-velocity
distribution which is consistent with its density in the halos. We thus found
that the convoluted event rates do not appreciably change compared to those
obtained with an average velocity. The event rates increase with A and, in the
SUSY parameter space considered, they can reach values up to 140
$y^{-1}Kg^{-1}$ for Pb. The modulation effect, however, was found to be small
(less than $\pm 5%$).
