Electrodisintegration of Deuteron into Dark Matter and Proton Close to Threshold

Abstract

We discuss an investigation of the dark matter decay modes of the neutron, proposed by Fornal and Grinstein (2018–2020), Berezhiani (2017, 2018) and Ivanov et al. (2018) for solution of the neutron lifetime anomaly problem, through the analysis of the electrodisintegration of the deuteron d into dark matter fermions χ and protons p close to threshold. We calculate the triple-differential cross section for the reaction e−+d→χ+p+e− and propose to search for such a dark matter channel in coincidence experiments on the electrodisintegration of the deuteron e−+d→n+p+e− into neutrons n and protons close to threshold with outgoing electrons, protons, and neutrons in coincidence. An absence of neutron signals should testify to a detection of dark matter fermions.

Keywords

• dark matter decay modes
• neutron lifetime anomaly
• deuteron electrodisintegration