Probing inelastic sub-GeV dark matter at the DUNE near detector

Abstract

We study inelastic dark matter (iDM) in a minimal and ultraviolet-complete framework in which the dark photon mass arises from a dark Higgs mechanism. The spontaneous breaking of a $U(1{)}_D$ symmetry splits the Dirac fermion into two Majorana states, thus opening new annihilation channels mediated by the dark Higgs. Focusing on sub-GeV dark matter, we assess the sensitivity of DUNE's liquid argon cube at the near detector (ND-LAr) to this scenario. We find that the ND-LAr can probe regions of parameter space consistent with the observed relic abundance due to these new annihilation channels, particularly for large dark photon-to-DM mass ratios where decay-based searches lose sensitivity. Our results highlight the complementarity between cosmological constraints and fixed-target experiments and demonstrate the potential of DUNE's ND-LAr to explore iDM scenarios with extended dark sectors.

arXiv comment20 pages, 5 figures; v2: references updated, minor changes, version accepted for publication in PRD

References in corpus (64)

• The automated computation of tree-level and next-to-leading order differential cross sections, and their matching to parton shower simulations
• Particle Dark Matter: Evidence, Candidates and Constraints
• Supersymmetric Dark Matter
• FeynRules 2.0 - A complete toolbox for tree-level phenomenology
• A History of Dark Matter
• The Waning of the WIMP? A Review of Models, Searches, and Constraints
• Inelastic Dark Matter
• New Fixed-Target Experiments to Search for Dark Gauge Forces
• WIMP dark matter candidates and searches - current status and future prospects
• micrOMEGAs5.0 : freeze-in
• Indirect Dark Matter Signatures in the Cosmic Dark Ages I. Generalizing the Bound on s-wave Dark Matter Annihilation from Planck
• Light Dark Matter: Models and Constraints
• Implications of Generalized Z-Z' Mixing
• The Dark Photon
• Hunting All the Hidden Photons
• Probing a Secluded U(1) at B-factories
• New Exclusion Limits on Dark Gauge Forces from Proton Bremsstrahlung in Beam-Dump Data
• Dark Matter, Millicharges, Axion and Scalar Particles, Gauge Bosons, and Other New Physics with LDMX
• Forbidden Dark Matter
• Accelerating the Discovery of Light Dark Matter
• Dark Matter Search Results from 4.2 Tonne-Years of Exposure of the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) Experiment
• Dark Matter Search in Nucleon, Pion, and Electron Channels from a Proton Beam Dump with MiniBooNE
• Search for pair and single production of vectorlike quarks in final states with at least one $Z$ boson decaying into a pair of electrons or muons in $pp$ collision data collected with the ATLAS detector at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV
• Discovering Inelastic Thermal-Relic Dark Matter at Colliders
• Dark Matter Search Results from 1.54 Tonne$\cdot$Year Exposure of PandaX-4T
• Testing Light Dark Matter Coannihilation With Fixed-Target Experiments
• Direct detection of dark matter in models with a light Z'
• Dark Matter Search in a Proton Beam Dump with MiniBooNE
• The High-Energy Frontier of the Intensity Frontier: Closing the Dark Photon, Inelastic Dark Matter, and Muon g-2 Windows
• Probing Hidden Sector Photons through the Higgs Window
• Minimal semi-annihilating ${\mathbb{Z}}_N$ scalar dark matter
• Revisiting the Dark Photon Explanation of the Muon Anomalous Magnetic Moment
• Measurement of Neutrino Flux from Neutrino-Electron Elastic Scattering
• $Z^{\prime }$s in neutrino scattering at DUNE
• Dark Matter "Collider" from Inelastic Boosted Dark Matter
• Hunting On- and Off-Axis for Light Dark Matter with DUNE-PRISM
• Long-lived Dark Higgs and Inelastic Dark Matter at Belle II
• Searching for Physics Beyond the Standard Model in an Off-Axis DUNE Near Detector
• Neutrino-electron elastic scattering for flux determination at the DUNE oscillation experiment
• Sensitivity of the SHiP experiment to dark photons decaying to a pair of charged particles
• WIMP Dark Matter Search using a 3.1 Tonne-Year Exposure of the XENONnT Experiment
• Dark Higgs Bosons at Colliders
• On sub-GeV Dark Matter Production at Fixed-Target Experiments
• Prospects for Detecting Boosted Dark Matter in DUNE through Hadronic Interactions
• Hunting sub-GeV dark matter with NO$\nu$A near detector
• New production channels for light dark matter in hadronic showers
• Event generation for beam dump experiments
• Dark sector searches with the CMS experiment
• New Pathways to the Relic Abundance of Vector-Portal Dark Matter
• Exploration at the high-energy frontier: ATLAS Run~2 searches investigating the exotic jungle beyond the Standard Model
• Dark Matter Bound State Formation in Fermionic $Z_2$ DM model with Light Dark Photon and Dark Higgs Boson
• Signatures of dark Higgs boson in light fermionic dark matter scenarios
• Constraining Light Thermal Inelastic Dark Matter with NA64
• Probing Energetic Light Dark Matter with Multi-Particle Tracks Signatures at DUNE
• Using DUNE to Shed Light on the Electromagnetic Properties of Neutrinos
• BSM Targets at a "Target-less DUNE"
• The muon g-2 anomaly confronts new physics in $e^{\pm }$ and ${\mu }^{\pm }$ final states scattering
• New Thermal Relic Targets for Inelastic Vector-Portal Dark Matter
• Extending the Reach of Leptophilic Boson Searches at DUNE and MiniBooNE with Bremsstrahlung and Resonant Production
• Inelastic Dark Matter from Dark Higgs Boson Decays at FASER
• Dark Matter Raining on DUNE and Other Large Volume Detectors
• Prospects of detecting cosmic ray up-scattered dark matter with DUNE
• Search for a Dark Higgs Boson Produced in Association with Inelastic Dark Matter at the Belle II Experiment
• Prospects of five-dimensional $L_{\mu }-L_{\tau }$ gauge interactions in the light of elastic neutrino-electron scatterings: The scope of the DUNE near detector