Dark Matter at the Intensity Frontier: the new MESA electron accelerator facility

TL;DR

This paper discusses the potential of the new MESA electron accelerator facility for dark matter searches, emphasizing its capabilities to provide intense electron beams for detecting various dark matter particles with high sensitivity.

Contribution

It introduces the MESA accelerator as a new platform for dark matter searches, highlighting its unique ability to conduct sensitive experiments with intense electron beams.

Findings

MESA will enable competitive dark matter detection experiments.

The facility will support diverse dark matter search methods.

Enhanced sensitivity compared to previous experiments.

Abstract

Dark Matter is being searched with a variety of methods, each of which tackles this challenge focusing on different kinds of particles, masses and couplings. Here we describe Dark Matter searches conducted with accelerators and fixed targets. In particular, we highlight the contribution of the experiments being built at the new Mainz Energy-recovery Superconducting Accelerator (MESA) facility. MESA will provide intense electron beams for hadron and nuclear physics, as well as for Dark Matter searches with competitive sensitivities.