Dark matter is a well-established theoretical addition to the Standard Modelsupported by many observations in modern astrophysics and cosmology. In thiscontext, the existence of weakly interacting massive particles represents anappealing solution to the observed thermal relic in the Universe. Indeed, alarge experimental campaign is ongoing for the detection of such particles inthe sub-GeV mass range. Adopting the benchmark scenario for light dark matterparticles produced in the decay of a dark photon, with $alpha_D=0.1$ and$m_{A'}=3m_{chi}$, we study the potential of the SHiP experiment to detectsuch elusive particles through its Scattering and Neutrino detector (SND). Inits 5-years run, corresponding to $2cdot 10^{20}$ protons on target from theCERN SPS, we find that SHiP will improve the current limits in the mass rangefor the dark matter from about 1 MeV to 300 MeV. In particular, we show thatSHiP will probe the thermal target for Majorana candidates in most of this masswindow and even reach the Pseudo-Dirac thermal relic.
Sensitivity of the SHiP experiment to light dark matter
R. Albanese;M. de Magistris;D. De Simone;C. Franco;V. P. Loschiavo;S. Simone;C. Visone;
2020-01-01
Abstract
Dark matter is a well-established theoretical addition to the Standard Modelsupported by many observations in modern astrophysics and cosmology. In thiscontext, the existence of weakly interacting massive particles represents anappealing solution to the observed thermal relic in the Universe. Indeed, alarge experimental campaign is ongoing for the detection of such particles inthe sub-GeV mass range. Adopting the benchmark scenario for light dark matterparticles produced in the decay of a dark photon, with $alpha_D=0.1$ and$m_{A'}=3m_{chi}$, we study the potential of the SHiP experiment to detectsuch elusive particles through its Scattering and Neutrino detector (SND). Inits 5-years run, corresponding to $2cdot 10^{20}$ protons on target from theCERN SPS, we find that SHiP will improve the current limits in the mass rangefor the dark matter from about 1 MeV to 300 MeV. In particular, we show thatSHiP will probe the thermal target for Majorana candidates in most of this masswindow and even reach the Pseudo-Dirac thermal relic.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.