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Title: A high efficiency photon veto for the Light Dark Matter eXperiment

Journal Article · · Journal of High Energy Physics (Online)

Fixed-target experiments using primary electron beams can be powerful discovery tools for light dark matter in the sub-GeV mass range. The Light Dark Matter eXperiment (LDMX) is designed to measure missing momentum in high-rate electron fixed-target reactions with beam energies of 4 GeV to 16 GeV. A prerequisite for achieving several important sensitivity milestones is the capability to efficiently reject backgrounds associated with few-GeV bremsstrahlung, by twelve orders of magnitude, while maintaining high efficiency for signal. The primary challenge arises from events with photo-nuclear reactions faking the missing-momentum property of a dark matter signal. We present a methodology developed for the LDMX detector concept that is capable of the required rejection. By employing a detailed Geant4-based model of the detector response, we demonstrate that the sampling calorimetry proposed for LDMX can achieve better than 10-13 rejection of few-GeV photons. This suggests that the luminosity-limited sensitivity of LDMX can be realized at 4 GeV and higher beam energies.

Research Organization:
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States); SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE; USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP) (SC-25)
Contributing Organization:
The LDMX collaboration
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-07CH11359; AC02-76SF00515
OSTI ID:
1608809
Report Number(s):
FERMILAB-PUB--19-620-SCD; SLAC-PUB--17495; arXiv:1912.05535
Journal Information:
Journal of High Energy Physics (Online), Journal Name: Journal of High Energy Physics (Online) Journal Issue: 4 Vol. 2020; ISSN 1029-8479
Publisher:
Springer BerlinCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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