Spin-1 thermal targets for dark matter searches at beam dump and fixed target experiments

Journal article, 2023

The current framework for dark matter (DM) searches at beam dump and fixed target experiments primarily relies on four benchmark models, the so-called complex scalar, inelastic scalar, pseudo-Dirac and finally, Majorana DM models. While this approach has so far been successful in the interpretation of the available data, it a priori excludes the possibility that DM is made of spin-1 particles — a restriction which is neither theoretically nor experimentally justified. In this work we extend the current landscape of sub-GeV DM models to a set of models for spin-1 DM, including a family of simplified models (involving one DM candidate and one mediator — the dark photon) and an ultraviolet complete model based on a non-abelian gauge group where DM is a spin-1 Strongly Interacting Massive Particle (SIMP). For each of these models, we calculate the DM relic density, the expected number of signal events at beam dump experiments such as LSND and MiniBooNE, the rate of energy injection in the early universe thermal bath and in the Intergalactic Medium (IGM), as well as the helicity amplitudes for forward processes subject to the unitary bound. We then compare these predictions with experimental results from Planck, CMB surveys, IGM temperature observations, LSND, MiniBooNE, NA64, and BaBar and with available projections from LDMX and Belle II. Through this comparison, we identify the regions in the parameter space of the models considered in this work where DM is simultaneously thermally produced, compatible with present observations, and within reach at Belle II and, in particular, at LDMX. We find that the simplified models considered here are strongly constrained by current beam dump experiments and the unitarity bound, and will thus be conclusively probed (i.e. discovered or ruled out) in the first stages of LDMX data taking. We also find that the vector SIMP model explored in this work predicts the observed DM relic abundance, is compatible with current observations and within reach at LDMX in a wide region of the parameter space of the theory.