  The effects of astrophysical uncertainties on the exclusion limits at dark
matter direct detection experiments are investigated for three scenarios:
elastic, momentum dependent and inelastically scattering dark matter. We find
that varying the dark matter galactic escape velocity and the Sun's circular
velocity can lead to significant variations in the exclusion limits for light
($\lesssim10$ GeV) elastic and inelastic scattering dark matter. We also
calculate the limits using one hundred velocity distributions extracted from
the Via Lactea II and GHALO N-body simulations and find that a
Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution with the same astrophysical parameters generally
sets less constraining limits. The elastic and momentum dependent limits remain
robust for masses $\gtrsim50$ GeV under variations of the astrophysical
parameters and the form of the velocity distribution.

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology;Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics