Improved exclusion limit for light dark matter from e+e− annihilation in NA64


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Date

2021-11-01

Publication Type

Journal Article

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Abstract

The current most stringent constraints for the existence of sub-GeV dark matter coupling to Standard Model via a massive vector boson A′ were set by the NA64 experiment for the mass region mA′≲250  MeV, by analyzing data from the interaction of 2.84×1011 100-GeV electrons with an active thick target and searching for missing-energy events. In this work, by including A′ production via secondary positron annihilation with atomic electrons, we extend these limits in the 200–300 MeV region by almost an order of magnitude, touching for the first time the dark matter relic density constrained parameter combinations. Our new results demonstrate the power of the resonant annihilation process in missing energy dark-matter searches, paving the road to future dedicated e+ beam efforts.

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published

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Volume

104 (9)

Pages / Article No.

Publisher

American Physical Society

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Organisational unit

03503 - Rubbia, André / Rubbia, André check_circle

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Funding

169133 - NA64 - Search for Dark Sectors in Missing Energy Events (SNF)
186181 - NA64 - Searching for Dark Sectors at the CERN SPS (SNF)
186158 - Development of Data Acquisition Systems based on Silicon Photomultipliers readouts to search for dark sectors in NA64 at CERN (SNF)
197346 - Study of Exotic Matter (SNF)

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