Searches for Long Lived Neutral Particles

TL;DR

This paper explores new methods using neutrino telescopes to detect long-lived neutral particles produced at colliders or via dark matter annihilations, potentially surpassing direct detection in sensitivity.

Contribution

It introduces novel neutrino telescope-based search strategies for long-lived neutral particles from collider and dark matter sources, extending detection capabilities.

Findings

Neutrino telescopes can effectively detect LOLIPs from dark matter annihilation.

Sensitivity surpasses upcoming direct detection experiments for certain coupling strengths.

Detection prospects are limited at the LHC but promising via dark matter sources.

Abstract

An intriguing possibility for TeV scale physics is the existence of neutral long lived particles (LOLIPs) that subsequently decay into SM states. Such particles are many cases indistinguishable from missing transverse energy (MET) at colliders. We propose new methods to search for these particles using neutrino telescopes. We study their detection prospects, assuming production either at the LHC or through dark matter (DM) annihilations in the Sun and the Earth. We find that the sensitivity for LOLIPs produced at the LHC is limited by luminosity and detection energy thresholds. On the other hand, in the case of DM annihilation into LOLIPs, the sensitivity of neutrino telescopes is promising and may extend beyond the reach of upcoming direct detection experiments. In the context of low scale hidden sectors weakly coupled to the SM, such indirect searches allow to probe couplings as small as 10^-15.