Search for light dark matter with the MESA accelerator

Abstract: At the Institute for Nuclear Physics of the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, the MESA facility is currently being constructed. At its core there is a new superconducting energy-recovery linac which will provide intense electron beams for precision experiments in subatomic physics. An important part of the MESA physics program consists in the search for a "dark sector" which is a candidate explanation for the longstanding dark matter problem. This report will highlight the MESA dark sector program, and in particular two experiments will be described. The first one, MAGIX, is a two-spectrometer setup employing an internal gas-jet target installed on a recirculation arc of MESA. The second one is a beam-dump experiment for directly detecting dark matter particles. The experiments are in the R&D phase and the current status and future prospects will be presented.