BSM Targets at a "Target-less DUNE"

TL;DR

This paper proposes operating a future neutrino experiment like DUNE in a dump mode to significantly enhance its sensitivity to new physics, such as light dark matter and axion-like particles, by reducing neutrino backgrounds and exploring new parameter spaces.

Contribution

It demonstrates the potential of a target-less configuration at DUNE to probe unexplored regions of dark matter and axion-like particle parameter space with minimal additional exposure.

Findings

Reduced neutrino flux in dump mode lowers background noise.

Unexplored parameter space for thermal relic dark matter and QCD axions.

Publicly available neutrino flux calculations for further research.

Abstract

In this work we demonstrate that a future accelerator-based neutrino experiment such as DUNE can greatly increase its sensitivity to a variety of new physics scenarios by operating in a mode where the proton beam impinges on a beam dump. We consider two new physics scenarios, namely light dark matter (LDM) and axion-like particles (ALPs) and show that by utilizing a dump mode at a DUNE-like experiment, unexplored new regions of parameter space can be probed with an exposure of only 3 months with half of its expected initial beam power. Specifically, target-less configuration of future high intensity neutrino experiments will probe the parameter space for thermal relic DM as well as the QCD axion (DFSZ and KSVZ). The strength of such configuration in the context of new physics searches stems from the fact that the neutrino flux is significantly reduced compared to that of the target, resulting in much smaller backgrounds from neutrino interactions. We have verified this in detail by explicitly computing neutrino fluxes which we make publicly available in order to facilitate further studies with a target-less configuration.