1–5 Jun 2026
Paraninfo, University of Zaragoza
Europe/Madrid timezone

Sub-GeV Dark Matter Searches at Spallation Neutron Sources

3 Jun 2026, 15:00
20m
Pilar Sinués

Pilar Sinués

Oral presentation Theory & pheno Parallel Session - Theory/Phenomenology

Speaker

Dimitrios Papoulias (University of Hamburg)

Description

Sub-GeV dark matter interacting with the Standard Model through vector mediators is well motivated but remains challenging for conventional direct detection experiments. We study the sensitivity of future coherent elastic neutrino–nucleus scattering experiments at spallation neutron sources to light dark matter produced in neutral pion decays. We consider scalar dark matter interacting through a dark photon or a baryophilic vector mediator, with neutral pion production modeled using GEANT4 simulations.
We show that upcoming low-threshold detectors at ESS, J-PARC, and CSNS can probe previously unexplored parameter space, strengthening the search for hidden-sector dark matter.

Main Contribution topic Theory / Phenomenology
Secondary contribution topic Direct detection

Author

Dimitrios Papoulias (University of Hamburg)

Presentation materials