The BDX experiment at Jefferson Laboratory
- Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), Genova (Italy). et al.
The existence of MeV-GeV dark matter (DM) is theoretically well motivated but remarkably unexplored. The Beam Dump eXperiment (BDX) at Jefferson Laboratory aims to investigate this mass range. Dark matter particles will be detected through scattering on a segmented, plastic scintillator detector placed downstream of the beam-dump at one of the high intensity JLab experimental Halls. The experiment will collect up to 1022 electrons-on-target (EOT) in a one-year period. For these conditions, BDX is sensitive to the DM-nucleon elastic scattering at the level of a thousand counts per year, and is only limited by cosmogenic backgrounds. The experiment is also sensitive to DM-electron elastic and inelastic scattering, at the level of 10 counts/year. The foreseen signal for these channels is a high-energy (> 100 MeV) electromagnetic shower, with almost no background. The experiment has been presented in form of a Letter of Intent to the laboratory, receiving positive feedback, and is currently being designed.
- Research Organization:
- Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF), Newport News, VA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Nuclear Physics (NP)
- Contributing Organization:
- Jefferson Lab BDX Collaboration
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-06OR23177
- OSTI ID:
- 1184626
- Report Number(s):
- JLAB-PHY-14-1969; DOE/OR/23177-3384
- Journal Information:
- EPJ Web Conf., Vol. 96; Conference: Dark Matter, Hadron Physics and Fusion Physics (DHF2014), Messina, Italy, September 24-26, 2014
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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