Illuminating sequential freeze-in dark matter with dark photon signal at the CERN SHiP experiment
Abstract
Single-field freeze-in dark matter barely leaves observable footprints in dark matter direct detection, collider or fixed-target experiments, which can be altered in the two-field context. In this work, we consider sequential freeze-in dark matter through signals of dark photon mediator with a mass range of GeV covered by the proposed SHiP experiment. We show that the dark charge is fixed to be and the mixing parameter is restricted to , as a result of the out-of-equilibrium condition of dark photon and the observed relic abundance of dark matter. Within this region, the 5(15)-year data of proton bremsstrahlung process for the dark photon, assuming vector meson (dipole) dominance, excludes at 90\% confidence level, implying only a narrow region of close to left for alternative tests.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2512.05380,
title = {Illuminating sequential freeze-in dark matter with dark photon signal at the CERN SHiP experiment},
author = {Xinyue Yin and Sibo Zheng},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.05380},
year = {2026}
}