Probing the dark sector with nuclear transition photons

Abstract

Here we present world-leading sensitivity to light ($<170$ MeV) dark matter (DM) using beam-dump experiments. Dark sector particles produced during pion decay at accelerator beam-dumps can be detected via scattering in neutrino detectors. The decay of nuclei excited by the inelastic scattering of DM is an unexploited channel which has significantly better sensitivity than similar searches using the elastic scattering channel. We show that this channel is a powerful probe of DM by demonstrating sensitivity to the thermal relic abundance benchmark in a scalar DM dark-photon portal model. This is achieved through the use of existing data, obtained by the KARMEN experiment over two decades ago, which allow us to set world-leading constraints on this model over a wide mass range. With experimental improvements planned for the future, this technique will be able to probe the thermal relic benchmark for fermionic DM across a wide mass range.

arXiv comment5 pages, 4 figures. V2 updated with bounds from KARMEN and projections for PIP2BD. V3 as accepted by PRL

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• Recent Progress in Low Energy Neutrino Scattering Physics and Its Implications for the Standard and Beyond the Standard Model Physics
• Dark Matter Internal Pair Production -- A Novel Direct Detection Mechanism
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