Search for Dark Matter in the beam-dump of a proton beam with MiniBooNE

Abstract

A search for the production of sub-GeV dark matter via vector boson mediators was carried out using 8 GeV protons from the Fermilab Booster in a dedicated run where 1.86×1020 protons were delivered to the steel beam dump of the Booster Neutrino Beam (BNB). The MiniBooNE detector, 490 m downstream of the beam dump, is sensitive to the elastic scattering of dark matter particles off nucleons in the detector mineral oil, and neutrinos are an irreducible background. Here, a description of the detection principle and the analysis method of this novel and powerful technique to search for dark matter is given, and the results of a search in the context of a vector portal model of dark matter, as well as future prospects, are discussed.