Electron-Ion Collider as a Discovery Tool for Invisible Dark Bosons

TL;DR

The paper explores how the future Electron-Ion Collider can be utilized as a powerful discovery tool for detecting dark bosons with masses between 10 MeV and 10 GeV, especially those with weak electron couplings and invisible decays.

Contribution

It demonstrates the potential of the EIC to discover dark sector particles with specific properties, leveraging its precise measurements and tagging capabilities.

Findings

EIC can detect dark bosons with masses from 10 MeV to 10 GeV.

The method relies on electron beam measurements and incoherent scattering tagging.

The approach is effective for dark bosons with weak couplings and invisible decay channels.

Abstract

We illustrate how the future Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) can be used to discover dark bosons with masses in the $\sim$ (10~MeV -- 10~GeV) regime, having a wide range of properties. We only require that the dark bosons have a non-negligible weak coupling to electrons and decay with $\ord{1}$ branching fraction into invisible final states. Our signal selection takes advantage of the excellent electron beam kinematic measurements and the capability to tag incoherent scattering, as envisioned at the EIC. This makes the EIC a powerful tool for uncovering potential dark sector forces, for a variety of possibilities.