Probing inelastic sub-GeV dark matter at the DUNE near detector

2026/04/30 by Anonymous, Amalia Betancur, Gustavo Castrillón +1
Physics and Astronomy · #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark matter #Detector #Luminosity #Noise (video) #Particle Detector Development and Performance #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #hep-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/fyr4-tqp8

20 pages, 5 figures; v2: references updated, minor changes, version accepted for publication in PRD

openalex publication_date 2026/07/01 · openalex created_date 2026/07/02 · arxiv created 2026/08/05 · arxiv updated 2026/08/06 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06

Abstract

We study inelastic dark matter (iDM) in a minimal and ultraviolet-complete framework in which the dark photon mass arises from a dark Higgs mechanism. The spontaneous breaking of a <a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <a:mi>U</a:mi> <a:mo stretchy="false">(</a:mo> <a:mn>1</a:mn> <a:msub> <a:mo stretchy="false">)</a:mo> <a:mi>D</a:mi> </a:msub> </a:math> symmetry splits the Dirac fermion into two Majorana states, thus opening new annihilation channels mediated by the dark Higgs. Focusing on sub-GeV dark matter, we assess the sensitivity of DUNE’s liquid argon cube at the near detector (ND-LAr) to this scenario. We find that the ND-LAr can probe regions of parameter space consistent with the observed relic abundance due to these new annihilation channels, particularly for large dark photon-to-DM mass ratios where decay-based searches lose sensitivity. Our results highlight the complementarity between cosmological constraints and fixed-target experiments and demonstrate the potential of DUNE’s ND-LAr to explore iDM scenarios with extended dark sectors.

Citations

• Opening the Parameter Space of sub-GeV Inelastic Dark Matter through Parity Violation
• Search for Accelerator-Produced Sub-GeV Dark Matter with the NOvA Near Detector
• Search for a Dark Higgs Boson Produced in Association with Inelastic Dark Matter at the Belle II Experiment
• Searching for elusive dark Higgs boson in spin-1/2 inelastic dark matter models at Belle II
• Prospects of detecting cosmic ray up-scattered dark matter with DUNE
• Lepton collider imprints of Inelastic dark matter model
• WIMP Dark Matter Search using a 3.1 Tonne-Year Exposure of the XENONnT Experiment
• Dark Matter Search Results from 4.2 Tonne-Years of Exposure of the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) Experiment
• Not-so-inelastic Dark Matter
• Dark fluxes from electromagnetic cascades
• First search for dark-trident processes using the MicroBooNE detector
• Ultraviolet Running Constraints on Low Mass Dark Sectors
• A comprehensive guide to the physics and usage of PYTHIA 8.3
• A comprehensive guide to the physics and usage of PYTHIA 8.3
• First Probe of Sub-GeV Dark Matter Beyond the Cosmological Expectation with the COHERENT CsI Detector at the SNS
• Cosmology and Signals of Light Pseudo-Dirac Dark Matter
• Extending the Reach of Leptophilic Boson Searches at DUNE and MiniBooNE with Bremsstrahlung and Resonant Production
• Probing the explanation of the muon (g-2) anomaly and thermal light dark matter with the semi-visible dark photon channel
• Inelastic Dark Matter at the Fermilab Short Baseline Neutrino Program
• Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) Near Detector Conceptual Design Report
• Searching for Physics Beyond the Standard Model in an Off-Axis DUNE Near Detector
• Long-lived Dark Higgs and Inelastic Dark Matter at Belle II
• New production channels for light dark matter in hadronic showers
• Probing Energetic Light Dark Matter with Multi-Particle Tracks Signatures at DUNE
• The Dark Photon
• Sub-GeV dark matter production at fixed-target experiments
• Prospects for Detecting Boosted Dark Matter in DUNE through Hadronic Interactions
• Neutrino-electron elastic scattering for flux determination at the DUNE oscillation experiment
• Dark Matter Bound State Formation in Fermionic Z₂ DM model with Light Dark Photon and Dark Higgs Boson
• The High-Energy Frontier of the Intensity Frontier: Closing the Dark Photon, Inelastic Dark Matter, and Muon g-2 Windows
• Hunting On- and Off-Axis for Light Dark Matter with DUNE-PRISM
• Z^′s in neutrino scattering at DUNE
• Revisiting the Dark Photon Explanation of the Muon Anomalous Magnetic Moment
• Event generation for beam dump experiments
• History of dark matter
• Signatures of dark Higgs boson in light fermionic dark matter scenarios
• Hunting sub-GeV dark matter with NOνA near detector
• Dark Matter, Millicharges, Axion and Scalar Particles, Gauge Bosons, and Other New Physics with LDMX
• Dark Matter Search in Nucleon, Pion, and Electron Channels from a Proton Beam Dump with MiniBooNE
• Hunting All the Hidden Photons
• micrOMEGAs5.0 : freeze-in
• Light Dark Matter: Models and Constraints
• WIMP dark matter candidates and searches - current status and future prospects
• US Cosmic Visions: New Ideas in Dark Matter 2017: Community Report
• The Waning of the WIMP? A Review of Models, Searches, and Constraints
• Testing Light Dark Matter Coannihilation With Fixed-Target Experiments
• Dark Matter "Collider" from Inelastic Boosted Dark Matter
• Dark Sectors 2016 Workshop: Community Report
• Measurement of Neutrino Flux from Neutrino-Electron Elastic Scattering
• Discovering Inelastic Thermal-Relic Dark Matter at Colliders
• Forbidden Dark Matter
• Indirect Dark Matter Signatures in the Cosmic Dark Ages I. Generalizing the Bound on s-wave Dark Matter Annihilation from Planck
• Accelerating the Discovery of Light Dark Matter
• The automated computation of tree-level and next-to-leading order differential cross sections, and their matching to parton shower simulations
• Minimal semi-annihilating ℤ_N scalar dark matter
• New Exclusion Limits on Dark Gauge Forces from Proton Bremsstrahlung in Beam-Dump Data
• FeynRules 2.0 — A complete toolbox for tree-level phenomenology
• Direct detection of dark matter in models with a light Z'
• New Fixed-Target Experiments to Search for Dark Gauge Forces
• Probing a Secluded U(1) at B-factories
• Probing hidden sector photons through the Higgs window
• Higgs-field Portal into Hidden Sectors
• Particle dark matter: evidence, candidates and constraints
• Inelastic Dark Matter
• Supersymmetric Dark Matter
• Planck 2018 results
• Planck 2018 results: VI. Cosmological parameters