Description:

Title: Neutrino Experiments for Dark Matter Detection

Speaker: Yue Zhao, University of Michigan

Abstract: The purposes of neutrino experiments can be extended to look for boosted dark matter (DM) flux as well as DM induced nucleon decay processes. These signatures appear as natural consequences in many well-motivated models. A boosted DM, due to a moderate Lorentz boost factor, can knock a nucleon out of nucleus. At the meanwhile, DM which carries anti-baryon number can annihilate with a nucleon and generate signatures similar to nucleon decay processes. We find that neutrino experiments, such as Super-Kamiokande, MicroBooNE and DUNE, are suitable for such searches. We propose detection strategies and show interesting parameter space has been probed by current data from Super-Kamiokande. Optimizing event selections and carrying out measurements in MicroBooNE and DUNE can further improve reach limits.

Keywords: Physics, Astronomy, HEP