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arXiv · 2604.15541

Probing inelastic sub-GeV dark matter at the DUNE near detector

Amalia Betancur·Gustavo Castrillón·Óscar Zapata
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Abstract

We study inelastic dark matter (iDM) in a minimal and ultraviolet-complete framework in which the dark photon mass arises from a dark Higgs mechanism. The spontaneous breaking of a $U(1)_D$ symmetry splits the Dirac fermion into two Majorana states, thus opening new annihilation channels mediated by the dark Higgs. Focusing on sub-GeV dark matter, we assess the sensitivity of DUNE's liquid argon cube at the near detector (ND-LAr) to this scenario. We find that the ND-LAr can probe regions of parameter space consistent with the observed relic abundance due to these new annihilation channels, particularly for large dark photon-to-DM mass ratios where decay-based searches lose sensitivity. Our results highlight the complementarity between cosmological constraints and fixed-target experiments and demonstrate the potential of DUNE's ND-LAr to explore iDM scenarios with extended dark sectors.

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Amalia Betancur, Gustavo Castrillón, Óscar Zapata. 2026-04-16. Probing inelastic sub-GeV dark matter at the DUNE near detector. https://doi.org/10.1103/fyr4-tqp8

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