Dark Matter Search in a Beam-Dump eXperiment (BDX) at Jefferson Lab

Technical Report · Tue Jul 05 00:00:00 EDT 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1322154· OSTI ID:1322154

Battaglieri, M. ^[1]

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1. Univ. of Genova (Italy). National Institute for Nuclear Physics. et al

MeV-GeV dark matter (DM) is theoretically well motivated but remarkably unexplored. This proposal presents the MeV-GeV DM discovery potential for a $$\sim$$1 m$^3$ segmented CsI(Tl) scintillator detector placed downstream of the Hall A beam-dump at Jefferson Lab, receiving up to 10$$^{22}$$ electrons-on-target (EOT) in 285 days. This experiment (Beam-Dump eXperiment or BDX) would be sensitive to elastic DM-electron and to inelastic DM scattering at the level of 10 counts per year, reaching the limit of the neutrino irreducible background. The distinct signature of a DM interaction will be an electromagnetic shower of few hundreds of MeV, together with a reduced activity in the surrounding active veto counters. A detailed description of the DM particle $$\chi$$ production in the dump and subsequent interaction in the detector has been performed by means of Monte Carlo simulations. Different approaches have been used to evaluate the expected backgrounds: the cosmogenic background has been extrapolated from the results obtained with a prototype detector running at INFN-LNS (Italy), while the beam-related background has been evaluated by GEANT4 Monte Carlo simulations. The proposed experiment will be sensitive to large regions of DM parameter space, exceeding the discovery potential of existing and planned experiments in the MeV-GeV DM mass range by up to two orders of magnitude.

• Research Organization: SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States); Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
• Contributing Organization: BDX Collaboration
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-07CH11359
• OSTI ID: 1322154
• Report Number(s): arXiv:1607.01390; FERMILAB-TM-2630-PPD; 1474099; TRN: US1601895
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
EXPERIMENT DESIGN
CEBAF ACCELERATOR
MONTE CARLO METHOD
MEV RANGE
GEV RANGE
NONLUMINOUS MATTER
ELECTRONS
BEAM DUMPS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
SOLID SCINTILLATION DETECTORS
CESIUM IODIDES
NEUTRINOS
INTERACTIONS
PROPOSALS
ELASTIC SCATTERING
INELASTIC SCATTERING
BACKGROUND RADIATION