Prospects for detecting boosted dark matter in DUNE through hadronic interactions

Abstract

Boosted dark matter (BDM) is a well-motivated class of dark matter (DM) candidates in which a small component of DM is relativistic at the present time. We lay the foundation for BDM searches via hadronic interactions in large liquid-argon time-projection chambers (LArTPCs), such as the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE). We investigate BDM-nucleus scattering in detail by developing new event-generation techniques with a parameterized detector simulation. We study the discovery potential in a DUNE-like experiment using the low threshold and directionality of hadron detection in LArTPCs and compare with other experiments.