# Searching for light WIMPS in view of neutron decay to dark matter

## TL;DR

This paper investigates the potential for light WIMPS as dark matter candidates, focusing on neutron decay into dark matter and its implications for detection experiments and cosmological dark matter composition.

## Contribution

It introduces a model linking neutron decay to dark matter, computes relevant cross sections, and explores experimental signatures for detection.

## Key findings

- Neutron decay to dark matter could explain neutron lifetime discrepancies.
- Light dark matter candidates may account for all dark matter in the universe.
- Specific signatures in nuclear target experiments could reveal such light dark matter.

## Abstract

In the present work we examine the implications on dark matter searches of the possibility of a partial decay of a neutron into a dark matter particle, slightly lighter than itself. Such a scenario recently proposed is required to bridge the discrepancy between the results of two different experiments measuring the life time of the neutron. It was subsequently suggested that this light dark matter candidate could make up the whole of dark matter in the universe. We thus first compute the nucleon cross section based on such models. Then we proceed explore the various signatures appearing in dark matter searches involving nuclear targets, in the case of such a light dark matter candidate.