Testing GeV-scale dark matter with fixed-target missing momentum experiments

Abstract

We describe an approach to detect dark matter and other invisible particles with mass below a GeV, exploiting missing energy-momentum measurements and other kinematic features of fixed-target production. In the case of an invisibly decaying MeV-GeV-scale dark photon, this approach can improve on present constraints by 2-6 orders of magnitude over the entire mass range, reaching sensitivity as low as $\epsilon^2\sim 10^{-14}$. Moreover, the approach can explore essentially all of the viable parameter space for thermal or asymmetric dark matter annihilating through the vector portal.