Proton fixed-target scintillation experiment to search for millicharged dark matter
Abstract
We propose a low-cost and movable setup to probe minicharged particles (or milli-charged particles) using high-intensity proton fixed-target facilities. This proposal, FerMINI, consists of a milliQan-type detector, requiring multi-coincident (nominally, triple-coincident) scintillation signatures within a small time window, located downstream of the proton target of a neutrino experiment. During the collisions of a large number of protons on the target, intense minicharged particle beams may be produced via meson photo-decays and Drell-Yan production. We take advantage of the high statistics, shielding, and potential neutrino-detector-related background reduction to search for minicharged particles in two potential sites: the MINOS near detector hall and the proposed DUNE near detector hall, both at Fermilab. We also explore several alternative designs, including the modifications of the nominal detector to increase signal yield, and combining this detector technology with existing and planned neutrino detectors to better search for minicharged particles. The CERN SPS beam and associated experimental structure also provide a similar alternative. FerMINI can achieve unprecedented sensitivity for minicharged particles in the MeV to few GeV regime with fractional charge $$\varepsilon=Q_{\chi}/e $$ between $$10^{-4}$$ (potentially saturating the detector limitation) and $$10^{-1}$$.
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1545470
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1489390
- Report Number(s):
- arXiv:1812.03998; FERMILAB-PUB-18-668-A-PPD-T
Journal ID: ISSN 2470-0010; PRVDAQ; 015043
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-07CH11359
- Resource Type:
- Published Article
- Journal Name:
- Physical Review D
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: Physical Review D Journal Volume: 100 Journal Issue: 1; Journal ID: ISSN 2470-0010
- Publisher:
- American Physical Society
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
Citation Formats
Kelly, Kevin J., and Tsai, Yu-Dai. Proton fixed-target scintillation experiment to search for millicharged dark matter. United States: N. p., 2019.
Web. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.100.015043.
Kelly, Kevin J., & Tsai, Yu-Dai. Proton fixed-target scintillation experiment to search for millicharged dark matter. United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.100.015043
Kelly, Kevin J., and Tsai, Yu-Dai. Mon .
"Proton fixed-target scintillation experiment to search for millicharged dark matter". United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.100.015043.
@article{osti_1545470,
title = {Proton fixed-target scintillation experiment to search for millicharged dark matter},
author = {Kelly, Kevin J. and Tsai, Yu-Dai},
abstractNote = {We propose a low-cost and movable setup to probe minicharged particles (or milli-charged particles) using high-intensity proton fixed-target facilities. This proposal, FerMINI, consists of a milliQan-type detector, requiring multi-coincident (nominally, triple-coincident) scintillation signatures within a small time window, located downstream of the proton target of a neutrino experiment. During the collisions of a large number of protons on the target, intense minicharged particle beams may be produced via meson photo-decays and Drell-Yan production. We take advantage of the high statistics, shielding, and potential neutrino-detector-related background reduction to search for minicharged particles in two potential sites: the MINOS near detector hall and the proposed DUNE near detector hall, both at Fermilab. We also explore several alternative designs, including the modifications of the nominal detector to increase signal yield, and combining this detector technology with existing and planned neutrino detectors to better search for minicharged particles. The CERN SPS beam and associated experimental structure also provide a similar alternative. FerMINI can achieve unprecedented sensitivity for minicharged particles in the MeV to few GeV regime with fractional charge $\varepsilon=Q_{\chi}/e $ between $10^{-4}$ (potentially saturating the detector limitation) and $10^{-1}$.},
doi = {10.1103/PhysRevD.100.015043},
journal = {Physical Review D},
number = 1,
volume = 100,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Jul 29 00:00:00 EDT 2019},
month = {Mon Jul 29 00:00:00 EDT 2019}
}
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.100.015043
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.100.015043
Other availability
Search WorldCat to find libraries that may hold this journal
Cited by: 20 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science
Web of Science
Figures / Tables:
FIG. 1: Expected number of χ particles to reach a perpendicular 1 m × 1 m detection area a distance of 574 m from a 120 GeV proton beam hitting a target, in agreement with the DUNE near detector hall. We assume 1 year of live-trigger time for the accumulatedmore »
All figures and tables
(2 total)
Save to My Library
You must Sign In or Create an Account in order to save documents to your library.
Works referenced in this record:
An absorption profile centred at 78 megahertz in the sky-averaged spectrum
journal, March 2018
- Bowman, Judd D.; Rogers, Alan E. E.; Monsalve, Raul A.
- Nature, Vol. 555, Issue 7694
Possible interaction between baryons and dark-matter particles revealed by the first stars
journal, March 2018
- Barkana, Rennan
- Nature, Vol. 555, Issue 7694
Quantised Singularities in the Electromagnetic Field
journal, September 1931
- Dirac, P. A. M.
- Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 133, Issue 821
Exploring portals to a hidden sector through fixed targets
journal, November 2009
- Batell, Brian; Pospelov, Maxim; Ritz, Adam
- Physical Review D, Vol. 80, Issue 9
Unity of All Elementary-Particle Forces
journal, February 1974
- Georgi, Howard; Glashow, S. L.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 32, Issue 8
New fixed-target experiments to search for dark gauge forces
journal, October 2009
- Bjorken, James D.; Essig, Rouven; Schuster, Philip
- Physical Review D, Vol. 80, Issue 7
Dark tridents at off-axis liquid argon neutrino detectors
journal, January 2019
- de Gouvêa, André; Fox, Patrick J.; Harnik, Roni
- Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2019, Issue 1
Secluded WIMP dark matter
journal, April 2008
- Pospelov, Maxim; Ritz, Adam; Voloshin, Mikhail
- Physics Letters B, Vol. 662, Issue 1
A small amount of mini-charged dark matter could cool the baryons in the early Universe
journal, May 2018
- Muñoz, Julian B.; Loeb, Abraham
- Nature, Vol. 557, Issue 7707
GeV-scale dark matter: production at the Main Injector
journal, February 2015
- Dobrescu, Bogdan A.; Frugiuele, Claudia
- Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2015, Issue 2
Review of Particle Physics
journal, August 2018
- Tanabashi, M.; Hagiwara, K.; Hikasa, K.
- Physical Review D, Vol. 98, Issue 3
Scintillations from Organic Crystals: Specific Fluorescence and Relative Response to Different Radiations
journal, October 1951
- Birks, J. B.
- Proceedings of the Physical Society. Section A, Vol. 64, Issue 10
Search for fractionally charged particles in collisions at
journal, May 2013
- Chatrchyan, S.; Khachatryan, V.; Sirunyan, A. M.
- Physical Review D, Vol. 87, Issue 9
Light scalars and dark photons in Borexino and LSND experiments
journal, October 2018
- Pospelov, Maxim; Tsai, Yu-Dai
- Physics Letters B, Vol. 785
Constraints on millicharged particles with low-threshold germanium detectors at Kuo-Sheng Reactor Neutrino Laboratory
journal, February 2019
- Singh, L.; Chen, J. W.; Chi, H. C.
- Physical Review D, Vol. 99, Issue 3
Updated bounds on milli-charged particles
journal, May 2000
- Davidson, Sacha; Hannestad, Steen; Raffelt, Georg
- Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2000, Issue 05
New electron beam-dump experiments to search for MeV to few-GeV dark matter
journal, December 2013
- Izaguirre, Eder; Krnjaic, Gordan; Schuster, Philip
- Physical Review D, Vol. 88, Issue 11
Light dark matter in neutrino beams: Production modeling and scattering signatures at MiniBooNE, T2K, and SHiP
journal, February 2017
- deNiverville, Patrick; Chen, Chien-Yi; Pospelov, Maxim
- Physical Review D, Vol. 95, Issue 3
Looking for milli-charged particles with a new experiment at the LHC
journal, June 2015
- Haas, Andrew; Hill, Christopher S.; Izaguirre, Eder
- Physics Letters B, Vol. 746
Scalar dark matter candidates
journal, April 2004
- Bœhm, C.; Fayet, P.
- Nuclear Physics B, Vol. 683, Issue 1-2
Closing the windows on MeV tau neutrinos
journal, January 1994
- Babu, K. S.; Gould, Thomas M.; Rothstein, I. Z.
- Physics Letters B, Vol. 321, Issue 1-2
Parton distributions for the LHC
journal, July 2009
- Martin, A. D.; Stirling, W. J.; Thorne, R. S.
- The European Physical Journal C, Vol. 63, Issue 2
Detecting a heavy neutrino electric dipole moment at the LHC
journal, February 2018
- Sher, Marc; Stevens, Justin R.
- Physics Letters B, Vol. 777
The NuMI neutrino beam
journal, January 2016
- Adamson, P.; Anderson, K.; Andrews, M.
- Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 806
Dark matter beams at LBNF
journal, April 2016
- Coloma, Pilar; Dobrescu, Bogdan A.; Frugiuele, Claudia
- Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2016, Issue 4
Dipole portal to heavy neutral leptons
journal, December 2018
- Magill, Gabriel; Plestid, Ryan; Pospelov, Maxim
- Physical Review D, Vol. 98, Issue 11
An introduction to PYTHIA 8.2
journal, June 2015
- Sjöstrand, Torbjörn; Ask, Stefan; Christiansen, Jesper R.
- Computer Physics Communications, Vol. 191
DAEδALUS and dark matter detection
journal, March 2015
- Kahn, Yonatan; Krnjaic, Gordan; Thaler, Jesse
- Physical Review D, Vol. 91, Issue 5
Decaying dark matter as a probe of unification and TeV spectroscopy
journal, September 2009
- Arvanitaki, Asimina; Dimopoulos, Savas; Dubovsky, Sergei
- Physical Review D, Vol. 80, Issue 5
Two U(1)'s and ϵ charge shifts
journal, January 1986
- Holdom, Bob
- Physics Letters B, Vol. 166, Issue 2
Strong constraints on light dark matter interpretation of the EDGES signal
journal, November 2018
- Barkana, Rennan; Outmezguine, Nadav Joseph; Redigolo, Diego
- Physical Review D, Vol. 98, Issue 10
Works referencing / citing this record:
Physics beyond colliders at CERN: beyond the Standard Model working group report
journal, December 2019
- Beacham, J.; Burrage, C.; Curtin, D.
- Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics, Vol. 47, Issue 1
Probing the Higgs portal at the Fermilab short-baseline neutrino experiments
journal, December 2019
- Batell, Brian; Berger, Joshua; Ismail, Ahmed
- Physical Review D, Vol. 100, Issue 11
Reviving millicharged dark matter for 21-cm cosmology
journal, December 2019
- Liu, Hongwan; Outmezguine, Nadav Joseph; Redigolo, Diego
- Physical Review D, Vol. 100, Issue 12
Figures/Tables have been extracted from DOE-funded journal article accepted manuscripts.