Search for Upward-Going Muons from Dark Matter at CMS

ORAL

Abstract

Some theories predict that dark matter could inelastically scatter off of atoms in the Earth and lose enough kinetic energy to become gravitationally trapped inside the Earth. Dark matter and dark anti-matter would then annihilate into dark photons which kinetically mix with Standard Model photons. These photons would produce pairs of fermions which would look to be upward-going, originating from underground. We present a search for these upward-going fermions, specifically muons, in cosmic muon data collected by CMS over the last decade. The search utilizes data-driven selection and background estimation methods. In this talk, I will present the current status and an estimated sensitivity of the search.

Presenters

  • Sanjit S Masanam

    University of California, Santa Barbara

Authors

  • Sanjit S Masanam

    University of California, Santa Barbara

  • Tamas A Vami

    University of California, Santa Barbara

  • Matthew Bellis

    Siena College

  • Danyi Zhang

    UCSB

  • Liam Brennan

    University of California, Santa Barbara