Understanding the background in dark matter searches by studying antinucleosynthesis in the laboratory with ALICE

Abstract

Antinuclei are considered to be one of the most promising probes in the indirect search for dark matter (DM) annihilation in space. However, in light of recent results on the production of light antinuclei in pp collisions at the LHC, an abundant production of light (anti)nuclei is also expected from Standard Model (SM) collisions of primary cosmic rays with the interstellar medium. Hence further precise measurements are required to constrain the production models of antinuclei in SM collisions to be sensitive to additional DM annihilation events. The most recent results of the ALICE collaboration on the production of antideuterons ($\overline{\mathrm{d}}$) and antihelium-3 ($^3\overline{\text{He}}$) in proton-proton (pp) and proton-lead (p--Pb) collisions are shown. These results provide valuable input for state-of-the-art calculations of the production models currently used to estimate the SM background to DM searches.