Simulations and background estimate for the DAMIC-M experiment

DAMIC-M (Dark Matter in CCDs at Modane) is a near-future experiment aiming to search for low-mass dark matter particles through their interactions with the silicon nucleus or electrons in the bulk of charge-coupled devices (CCDs). With respect to its predecessor DAMIC at SNOLAB, DAMIC-M will have a 25 times larger detector mass and will achieve sub-electron readout noise thanks to the use of the so-called skipper CCDs. With these novelties, DAMIC-M will be sensitive to WIMPS with masses below 10 GeV and it will be leading the search of MeV-scale hidden sector candidates and eV-scale hidden photons. To achieve these results, DAMIC-M requires a radiogenic background rate of a fraction of decays/keV/kg/day. Thus, an extensive campaign of innovation of the detector technology and design is ongoing. Simulations are being exploited to optimize the detector design and drive the material selection and handling. This proceedings provides a comprehensive overview of the explored detector designs, the corresponding estimated backgrounds, and the strategies for its mitigation.