Millicharged Particles in Neutrino Experiments

Magill, Gabriel; Plestid, Ryan; Pospelov, Maxim; Tsai, Yu-Dai

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.122.071801

Cited by 102 publications

(130 citation statements)

References 69 publications

(98 reference statements)

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“…The white region of Fig. 2 represents the available mDM parameter region, bounded between present collider bounds [35,37,40,87,88] and direct detection bounds [47]. We also show the prospects of exploring this region of parameter space with upcoming experiments.…”

Section: A the Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reviving millicharged dark matter for 21-cm cosmology

et al. 2019

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The existence of millicharged dark matter (mDM) can leave a measurable imprint on 21-cm cosmology through mDM-baryon scattering. However, the minimal scenario is severely constrained by existing cosmological bounds on both the fraction of dark matter that can be millicharged and the mass of mDM particles. We point out that introducing a long-range force between a millicharged subcomponent of dark matter and the dominant cold dark matter (CDM) component leads to efficient cooling of baryons in the early universe, while also significantly extending the range of viable mDM masses. Such a scenario can explain the anomalous absorption signal in the sky-averaged 21-cm spectrum observed by EDGES, and leads to a number of testable predictions for the properties of the dark sector. The mDM mass can then lie between 10 MeV and a few hundreds of GeVs, and its scattering cross section with baryons lies within an unconstrained window of parameter space above direct detection limits and below current bounds from colliders. In this allowed region, mDM can make up as little as 10 −8 of the total dark matter energy density. The CDM mass ranges from 10 MeV to a few GeVs, and has an interaction cross section with the Standard Model that is induced by a loop of mDM particles. This cross section is generically within reach of near-future low-threshold direct detection experiments.

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Section: A the Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reviving millicharged dark matter for 21-cm cosmology

et al. 2019

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“…At even higher masses (m χ ≥ 1 GeV), we use data from a high-altitude nuclear recoil experiments labelled "RRS" to constrain the open parameter space between the upper boundary of the direct-detection experiments done on the surface and the Figure 11: Discovery reach (thick red dashed lines) for a silicon dark matter detector with singleelectron sensitivity on a balloon (satellite) assuming an exposure of 1 gram-hour (0.1 gram-month) and 10 6 (10 9 ) background events, together with constraints on dark matter interacting with a massive, ultralight dark photon. Also shown are cooling constraints from supernovae 1987A (brown, "SN") [66], as well as Red-Giant and Horizontal-Branch stars (brown, "RG&HB") [62]; constraints from measurements of the number of relativistic degrees of freedom from the CMB (light green, "CMB N eff ") and BBN (blue, "BBN N eff ") [64,100], and from searches for milli-charged particles at SLAC (purple, "SLAC") [67], colliders (blue, "COLL") [62,104], and at LSND and MiniBooNE (green, "neutrino experiments") [68]; and the direct-detection constraints derived in this paper from SENSEI, CDMS-HVeV, XENON10, XENON100, and DarkSide-50 (combined into one red-shaded region, labelled "direct detection"), as well as from RRS (purple) and XQC (light orange) [45]. We also show for comparison the "freeze-in" line along which DM obtains the correct relic density in this model [4,105].…”

Section: Probing a Subdominant Component Of Dark Matter Interacting Wmentioning

confidence: 99%

Direct detection of strongly interacting sub-GeV dark matter via electron recoils

Emken

Essig

Kouvaris

et al. 2019

J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys.

145

121

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We consider direct-detection searches for sub-GeV dark matter via electron scatterings in the presence of large interactions between dark and ordinary matter. Scatterings both on electrons and nuclei in the Earth's crust, atmosphere, and shielding material attenuate the expected local dark matter flux at a terrestrial detector, so that such experiments lose sensitivity to dark matter above some critical cross section. We study various models, including dark matter interacting with a heavy and ultralight dark photon, through an electric dipole moment, and exclusively with electrons. For a darkphoton mediator and an electric dipole interaction, the dark matter-electron scattering cross-section is directly linked to the dark matter-nucleus cross section, and nuclear interactions typically dominate the attenuation process. We determine the exclusion bands for the different dark-matter models from several experiments -SENSEI, CDMS-HVeV, XENON10, XENON100, and DarkSide-50 -using a combination of Monte Carlo simulations and analytic estimates. We also derive projected sensitivities for a detector located at different depths and for a range of exposures, and calculate the projected sensitivity for SENSEI at SNOLAB and DAMIC-M at Modane. Finally, we discuss the reach to high cross sections and the modulation signature of a small balloon-and satellite-borne detector sensitive to electron recoils, such as a Skipper-CCD. Such a detector could potentially probe unconstrained parameter space at high cross sections for a sub-dominant component of dark matter interacting with a massive, but ultralight, dark photon.

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“…For this, we will consider the DUNE ND. However many of the consideration discussed here may apply to current and near-future SBN experiments such as microBooNE, SBND, and ICARUS which may consider mCP signals from the booser [19] but also the NuMI beamline [30,31]. To estimate the reach at the DUNE ND, we will scale up the signal and background estimates for ArgoNeuT described in the previous sections.…”

Section: Outlook For Dune Nd and Other Liquid Argon Detectorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…During the preparation of this work, Ref. [19] has also suggested a search for mCPs in neutrino detectors, including miniBooNE, microBooNE, and SBND using the booster 8 GeV beam line and with the future DUNE LAr Near Detector (DUNE ND) 1 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Millicharged particles in liquid argon neutrino experiments

Harnik

Liu

Palamara

2019

J. High Energ. Phys.

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We investigate the potential of Liquid Argon (LAr) neutrino detectors to search for millicharged particles, a well-motivated extension of the standard model. Detectors located downstream of an intense proton beam that is striking a target may be exposed to a large flux of millicharged particles. Millicharged particles interact primarily through low momentum exchange producing electron recoil events near detector threshold. Recently, sub-MeV detection capabilities were demonstrated by the Fermilab ArgoNeuT detector, a small LAr detector which was exposed to the NuMI neutrino beam. Despite high background rates and its small size, we show that ArgoNeuT is capable of probing unexplored parameter space with its existing dataset. In particular, we show that the excellent spatial resolution in LAr detectors allows rejecting backgrounds by requiring two soft hits that are aligned with the upstream target. We further discuss the prospects of these types of searches in future larger LAr neutrino detectors such as the DUNE near detector.

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Millicharged Particles in Neutrino Experiments

Cited by 102 publications

References 69 publications

Reviving millicharged dark matter for 21-cm cosmology

Reviving millicharged dark matter for 21-cm cosmology

Direct detection of strongly interacting sub-GeV dark matter via electron recoils

Millicharged particles in liquid argon neutrino experiments

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