Proposed Peking University muon experiment for muon tomography and dark matter search

Abstract

A set of new methods are proposed here to directly detect light mass dark matter through its scattering with abundant atmospheric muons or accelerator beams. A first plan is to use the free cosmic-ray muons interacting with dark matter in a volume surrounded by tracking detectors, to trace the possible interaction between dark matter and muons. Secondly, the same device can be interfaced with domestic or international muon beams. Due to the much larger muon intensity and focused beam, it is anticipated that the detector can be made further compact, and the resulting sensitivity on dark matter searches will be improved. Furthermore, it may also be possible to measure precisely directional distributions of cosmic-ray muons, either at mountain or sea level, and the differences may reveal possible information about dark matter distributed near the Earth. Specifically, methods described here can have advantages over “exotic” dark matters that are either muonphilic or slowed down due to some mechanism, and the sensitivity on dark matter and muon scattering cross section can reach as low as microbarn level. Published by the American Physical Society 2024