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Theory Group
Theory Group Seminar, 08 October 2019


Joshua Berger, University of Pittsburgh

Probing Dark Sectors at Neutrino Experiments

abstract

Neutrino experiments are designed to look for interactions of very weakly coupled particles. Dark matter and weakly coupled mediators fall under this category, such that current and upcoming experiments could have sensitivity. I discuss the prospects for two different scenarios of this sort: boosted dark matter at DUNE and Higgs portal scalars at short baseline experiments. In the former, non-standard annihilations of dark matter into other kinds of dark matter in the sun generate a flux of boosted dark matter with much larger velocity than is typical for relics in the galactic halo. I study the sensitivity of DUNE to a flux of hadronically interacting dark matter, including a realistic simulation of the interactions of the boosted dark matter in the detector. In the latter, dark scalars produced in the neutrino beam decay in the middle of neutrino detectors, leaving a distinctive signal. Short baseline neutrino experiments could have the best sensitivity in the near term. I present a detailed study of the prospect for these experiments to discover dark scalars.



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