Prospects on searches for baryonic Dark Matter produced in $b$-hadron decays at LHCb

TL;DR

This paper evaluates LHCb's potential to detect dark baryons produced in $b$-hadron decays, which could explain dark matter and matter-antimatter asymmetry, across a broad mass range in future collider runs.

Contribution

It provides a detailed sensitivity analysis of LHCb for dark baryon searches, including prospects for upcoming runs and upgrades, covering the entire mass spectrum.

Findings

LHCb can potentially detect dark baryons across the specified mass range.

The study outlines the experimental strategies for different decay topologies.

Projections indicate high sensitivity in future LHCb data-taking periods.

Abstract

A model that can simultaneously explain Dark Matter relic density and the apparent matter anti-matter imbalance of the universe has been recently proposed. The model requires $b$-hadron branching fractions to Dark Matter at the per mille level. The $b$-hadrons decay to a dark sector baryon, $\psi_{\rm{DS}}$, which has a mass in the region $940$ MeV/c$^{2} \leq m(\psi_{\rm{DS}}) \leq 4430$ MeV/c$^{2}$. In this paper, we discuss the sensitivity of the LHCb experiment to search for this dark baryon, covering different types of topology and giving prospects for Runs 3 and 4 of the LHC, as well as for the proposed Phase-II Upgrade. We show that the LHCb experiment can cover the entire mass range of the hypothetical dark baryon.