Constraints on sub-GeV hidden sector gauge bosons from a search for heavy neutrino decays

By S. Gninenko. 2012

178 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Several models of dark matter motivate the concept of hidden sectors consisting of SU ( 3 ) C × SU ( 2 ) L × U ( 1 ) Y singlet fields. The interaction between our and hidden matter could be transmitted by new abelian U ′ ( 1 ) gauge bosons A ′ mixing with ordinary photons. If such A ′ ʼs with the mass in the sub-GeV range exist, they would be produced through mixing with photons emitted in decays of η and η ′ neutral mesons generated by the high energy proton beam in a neutrino target. The A ′ ʼs would then penetrate the downstream shielding and be observed in a neutrino detector via their A ′ → e + e − decays. Using bounds from the CHARM neutrino experiment at CERN that searched for an excess of e + e − pairs from heavy neutrino decays, the area excluding the γ − A ′ mixing range 10 − 7 ≲ ϵ ≲ 10 − 4 for the A ′ mass region 1 ≲ M A ′ ≲ 500 MeV is derived. The obtained results are also used to constrain models, where a new gauge boson X interacts with quarks and leptons. New upper limits on the branching ratio as small as Br ( η → γ X ) ≲ 10 − 14 and Br ( η ′ → γ X ) ≲ 10 − 12 are obtained, which are several orders of magnitude more restrictive than the previous bounds from the Crystal Barrel experiment.

Subfields: Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1e2a525954c98c731467a217d7de37666804611d

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Nuclear and High Energy Physics

Citations in the corpus

Serendipity in dark photon searches (2018, unknown): “CHARM [121] η(′) → Xγ [21] e+e− 10 480 NOMAD [17], PS191 [33] π0 → Xγ [36] e+e− 7.”
Physics beyond colliders at CERN: beyond the Standard Model working group report (2019, result): “These results are complemented by those from beam dump experiments, such as E141 [193] and E137 [194, 201] at SLAC, E774 at Fermilab [195], CHARM [202, 203] and NuCal [204].”
Dark Matter's secret liaisons: phenomenology of a dark U(1) sector with bound states (2016, methodology): “Among them, the reinterpretation of Lsnd [105–107], Charm [108, 109] and ν-Cal I (at the U70 accelerator) [110, 111] data allows to exclude the gray shaded areas in fig.”
Particle physics models for the 17 MeV anomaly in beryllium nuclear decays (2016, unknown): “The CHARM experiment at CERN also bounds X couplings through its searches for η; η0 → γðX → eþe−Þ [75].”
Searching for long-lived particles beyond the Standard Model at the Large Hadron Collider (2019, background): “0.1 1 10 10010 - 9 10- 8 10- 7 10- 6 10- 5 10- 4 10- 3 Ki ne tic m ix in g pa ra m et er U70 E137 CHARM Phenix ATLAS (long-lived) KLOE SN LSND ɛ →h→2n1→2ɣD+2nD→4μ+Xpp 10% 40% 40% 40% 10% LHCb long-lived 35.9 fb-1 (13 TeV)CMS LHCbBaBar Orsay HADES 0.1% 1% 10% 40% ATLAS (prompt) CMS APEX/MAMI m [GeV]ɣ”