Event Generators and Light Dark Matter

Abstract: Recently, a number of experiments have been proposed with the aim of finding light dark matter. In particular, the proposed LDMX experiment is meant to utilize electron scattering off metal nuclei to excite dark matter emissions. Motivated by this, we construct an event generator for electrons scattering off metal nuclei. The relevant kinematics are presented in detail. The matrix element for the t-channel single photon exchange is calculated from Feynman rules. To obtain cross-sections for the scatterings we employ Monte Carlo techniques, in particular importance sampling. We improve how realistic the events are by distributing the incoming momenta according to a Gaussian. The validity of the results is investigated by a number of tests. Finally, we present the results as a number of plots depicting relevant observable quantities such as differential cross-sections and scattering angles.