[RBRC seminar] New Searches for Dark Sectors via Deep Inelastic Scattering at the EIC

by Prof. Susan Gardner (University of Kentucky)

Thursday 25 Jun 2026, 12:30 → 14:30 US/Eastern

2-160 (https://bnl.zoomgov.com/j/1600983728?pwd=RAD7OLcqre7Ycsp6JfFp6HAnpyLxex.1)

The upcoming EIC is expected to offer new perspectives on femtoscale physics, and in this talk I develop how it can also be used to probe non-Standard-Model physics in the MeV-GeV mass range. Such searches are motivated, e.g., by models that would simultaneously explain dark matter and the cosmic baryon asymmetry. Searches for new particles have traditionally been realized through ``bump hunts'’ or via displaced-vertex searches for more weakly coupled particles. Here I discuss how the combined QCD and QED factorization approach to deep inelastic scattering enables new searches for light, non-SM physics. That combined framework puts radiation in QED and QCD on the same theoretical footing, making it a perfect setting in which to study the production of non-SM particles, which are undetected save for the energy loss that they generate. As a first step we consider e-p scattering with leptophilic new physics and generic initial state radiation to provide a "proof of principle" example of this new approach, noting its compatibility with the expected forward-backward detection sensitivity of the ePIC detector at the EIC. This type of search strategy does not require that the non-SM particles couple to electrons, opening new vistas on such physics, and I will note how these searches can be accelerated using agentic AI techniques.