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