Abstract
MATHUSLA is a proposed surface detector at CERN that would be able to observe the decays of non-hadronic electrically neutral long-lived particles (LLPs) with almost no background or trigger limitations. This would allow MATHUSLA to probe sub-GeV to TeV masses and lifetimes up to $c\tau \sim 10^7~{\rm m}$. MATHUSLA can play an important role in probing dark-matter scenarios involving extended hidden sectors, where additional dark states often manifest as LLPs. A prime example of such a scenario is furnished by the Dynamical Dark Matter (DDM) framework, which intrinsically gives rise to large ensembles of dark states exhibiting a broad range of masses and lifetimes. In this paper, we examine the extent to which MATHUSLA can probe the DDM parameter space, and we demonstrate that MATHUSLA may be capable of providing direct confirmation of certain unique aspects of the DDM framework which might be difficult to probe in other ways.
Highlights
Understanding the properties of dark matter is one of the most important outstanding mysteries of both particle physics and cosmology. (For recent reviews, see Refs. [1,2,3,4,5,6,7].) much remains unknown about these properties, the particles which constitute the dark matter must either be absolutely stable or “hyperstable,” with extremely long lifetimes τ ≳ 1026 s
Given this broad spectrum of realizable lifetimes, we have shown that MATHUSLA will be an important discovery and diagnosis tool for Dynamical Dark Matter (DDM)
In this paper we analyzed the reach of the MATHUSLA detector within the DDM parameter space, focusing on potential long-lived particles (LLPs) signals that might be observed within MATHUSLA alone
Summary
Understanding the properties of dark matter is one of the most important outstanding mysteries of both particle physics and cosmology. (For recent reviews, see Refs. [1,2,3,4,5,6,7].) much remains unknown about these properties, the particles which constitute the dark matter must either be absolutely stable or “hyperstable,” with extremely long lifetimes τ ≳ 1026 s. Dynamical Dark Matter (DDM) [16,17,18,19,20,21] is an alternative framework for dark-matter physics in which the dark sector comprises an entire ensemble of states exhibiting a broad range of lifetimes and cosmological abundances Those states within the ensemble whose lifetimes exceed the current age of the Universe together comprise the dark matter observed today. This balancing replaces the usual notion of dark-matter stability Within this framework, the lifetimes and abundances of the states within the DDM ensemble are generally connected through scaling relations which hold across the entire ensemble. The recently proposed MATHUSLA detector [22] is designed to probe the long-lifetime regime by searching for displaced vertices on the surface above ATLAS or CMS This detector will be able to discover LLPs with a similar geometric acceptance as the main detectors, but without background or trigger limitations. VI with a discussion of possible future directions for study
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