The neutrino fog for inelastic dark matter

We characterize the behavior of the neutrino fog for inelastic dark matter scattering on xenon. The inelastic scattering kinematics reshape the recoil spectrum of the signal and produce a qualitatively different neutrino fog landscape. In some regions of the inelastic parameter space the fog is completely absent for future xenon experiments at any scale, while in other regions the fog is dispelled only to reappear at larger exposures. We find that multiple background sources with uncertain normalizations can make the onset of the fog jump discontinuously with the dark matter mass and mass splitting, while the discovery limit varies smoothly. We also describe a mechanism by which reduced uncertainties on neutrino rates may have the unintuitive effect of raising neutrino floors derived from the fog opacity.