New Dark Matter Search Strategies at DUNE

TL;DR

This paper proposes new detection strategies at DUNE for dark matter annihilating in the Sun, focusing on neutrino signals from stopped kaons and methods to determine neutrino direction to improve search sensitivity.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to dark matter detection at DUNE by utilizing neutrino directionality from hadronic recoil, enhancing systematic uncertainty control.

Findings

Neutrinos from stopped kaons can signal dark matter annihilation in the Sun.

Directionality of neutrinos improves background discrimination.

The strategy enhances DUNE's dark matter search sensitivity.

Abstract

If dark matter annihilates to light quarks in the core of the Sun, then a flux of 236 MeV neutrinos will be produced from the decay of stopped kaons. We consider strategies for DUNE to not only observe such a signal, but to determine the direction of the neutrino from the hadronic recoil. We show that this novel strategy can provide a better handle on systematic uncertainties associated with dark matter searches.