A proposed PKU-Muon experiment for muon tomography and dark matter search

TL;DR

This paper proposes new methods for detecting light dark matter by observing its interactions with atmospheric muons and using muon beams, aiming to improve sensitivity and explore dark matter distribution near Earth.

Contribution

It introduces novel detection techniques involving cosmic-ray and accelerator muons, enhancing dark matter search sensitivity and directional distribution measurements.

Findings

Potential sensitivity to dark matter-muon cross sections at microbarn level

Use of cosmic-ray muons for dark matter interaction detection

Enhanced detection capabilities with muon beam interfacing

Abstract

We propose here a set of new methods to directly detect light mass dark matter through its scattering with abundant atmospheric muons or accelerator beams. Firstly, we plan to use the free cosmic-ray muons interacting with dark matter in a volume surrounded by tracking detectors, to trace possible interaction between dark matter and muons. Secondly, we will interface our device with domestic or international muon beams. Due to much larger muon intensity and focused beam, we anticipate the detector can be made further compact and the resulting sensitivity on dark matter searches will be improved. Furthermore, we will measure precisely directional distributions of cosmic-ray muons, either at mountain or sea level, and the differences may reveal possible information of dark matter distributed near the earth. Specifically, our methods can have advantages over `exotic' dark matters which are either muon-philic or slowed down due to some mechanism, and sensitivity on dark matter and muon scattering cross section can reach as low as microbarn level.