Year: 2015
Type: article
Abstract: We demonstrate that current and planned underground neutrino experiments could offer a powerful probe of few-MeV dark matter when combined with a nearby high-intensity low-to-medium energy electron accelerator. This experimental setup, an underground beam-dump experiment, is capable of decisively testing the thermal freeze-out mechanism for several natural dark matter scenarios in this mass range. We present the sensitivity reach in terms of the mass-coupling parameter space of existing and planned detectors, such as Super-K and $\mathrm{SNO}+$, in conjunction with a hypothetical 100-MeV energy accelerator. This setup can also greatly extend the sensitivity of direct searches for new light weakly coupled force carriers independent of their connection to dark matter.
Authors: Eder Izaguirre, Gordan Krnjaic, Maxim Pospelov
Institutions: Perimeter Institute, University of Victoria
Language: English
Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: Government of Canada
OpenAlex ID: W1507370339