Search for inelastic dark matter in events with two displaced muons and missing transverse momentum in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV

A search for dark matter in events with a displaced nonresonant muon pair and missing transverse
momentum is presented. The analysis is performed using an integrated luminosity of 138 fb−1 of protonproton (pp) collision data at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV produced by the LHC in 2016–2018. No
significant excess over the predicted backgrounds is observed. Upper limits are set on the product of the
inelastic dark matter production cross section σðpp → A0 → χ1χ2Þ and the decay branching fraction
Bðχ2 → χ1μþμ−Þ, where A0 is a dark photon and χ1 and χ2 are states in the dark sector with near mass
degeneracy. This is the first dedicated collider search for inelastic dark matter.