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arXiv · 2503.07722

Direct Detection of Ultralight Dark Matter via Charged Lepton Flavor Violation

Innes Bigaran·Patrick J. Fox·Yann Gouttenoire·Roni Harnik·Gordan Krnjaic·Tony Menzo·Jure Zupan
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Abstract

We propose a dark matter direct-detection strategy using charged particle decays at accelerator-based experiments. If ultralight $(m_\phi \ll \text{eV})$ dark matter has a misalignment abundance, its local field oscillates in time at a frequency set by its mass. If it also couples to flavor-changing neutral currents, rare exotic decays such as $\mu \to e \phi'$ and $\tau\to e(\mu)\phi'$ inherit this modulation. Focusing on such charged lepton flavor-violating decays, we show that sufficient event samples can enable detection of ultralight dark matter candidates at Mu3e, Belle-II, and FCC-ee.

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Innes Bigaran, Patrick J. Fox, Yann Gouttenoire, Roni Harnik, Gordan Krnjaic, Tony Menzo, Jure Zupan. 2025-03-10. Direct Detection of Ultralight Dark Matter via Charged Lepton Flavor Violation. https://doi.org/10.1103/gvf4-d2b9

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