Speaker
Description
In a dedicated run where protons from the Fermilab Booster were
delivered directly to the steel beam dump of the Booster Neutrino
Beamline, the MiniBooNE detector was used to search for the
production of dark matter particles via vector-boson mediators,
as predicted by vector portal models of dark matter. In the
scenario that was considered, the interactions of the dark matter
particles are mediated by a "dark photon" that kinetically mixes
with the ordinary photon, and four parameters determine the
physics: the dark matter mass, the mediator mass, the kinetic
mixing parameter, and the dark sector coupling. The signal
searched for was the elastic scattering of dark matter particles
off nucleons in the detector mineral oil, with neutrinos being an
irreducible background. Within the model considered, the results
obtained provide the best limits on the dark matter annihilation
parameter, in the dark matter mass range from 0.01 to 0.3 GeV, for
a value of the dark sector coupling consistent with theoretical
bounds. The result also excludes a vector mediator particle solution
to the g-2 anomaly. Our analysis was motivated by the vector portal
model, however, other low-mass dark matter models are also possible.
In this talk we will review the experiment, the analysis methods,
and present the results, which demonstrate that beam dump experiments
provide a novel and promising approach to dark matter searches.
