Probing New Physics with Underground Accelerators and Radioactive Sources

Abstract

New light, weakly coupled particles can be efficiently produced at existing and future high-intensity accelerators and radioactive sources in deep underground laboratories. Once produced, these particles can scatter or decay in large neutrino detectors (e.g Super-K and Borexino) housed in the same facilities. We discuss the production of weakly coupled scalars $\varphi$ via nuclear de-excitation of an excited element into the ground state in two viable concrete reactions: the decay of the $0^{+}$ excited state of ${}^{16}$O populated via a $(p,\alpha )$ reaction on fluorine and from radioactive ${}^{144}$Ce decay where the scalar is produced in the de-excitation of ${}^{144}$Nd${}^{\ast }$, which occurs along the decay chain. Subsequent scattering on electrons, $e(\varphi ,\gamma )e$, yields a mono-energetic signal that is observable in neutrino detectors. We show that this proposed experimental set-up can cover new territory for masses $250\mathrm{keV}\le m_{\varphi }\le 2m_e$ and couplings to protons and electrons, $10^{-11}<g_e{g}_p<10^{-7}$. This parameter space is motivated by explanations of the "proton charge radius puzzle", thus this strategy adds a viable new physics component to the neutrino and nuclear astrophysics programs at underground facilities.

5 pages, 2 figures

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• Testing GeV-Scale Dark Matter with Fixed-Target Missing Momentum Experiments
• The Leptonic Higgs Portal
• Dark matter scattering on electrons: Accurate calculations of atomic excitations and implications for the DAMA signal
• Electrophobic Scalar Boson and Muonic Puzzles
• The Validity of the Weizsacker-Williams Approximation and the Analysis of Beam Dump Experiments: Production of a New Scalar Boson
• Foraging for dark matter in large volume liquid scintillator neutrino detectors with multiscatter events
• Light Scalars and Dark Photons in Borexino and LSND Experiments
• Severe Constraints on New Physics Explanations of the MiniBooNE Excess
• Novel constraints on fifth forces and ultralight dark sector with asteroidal data
• MeV-Scale Dark Matter Deep Underground
• Dark Photons from Nuclear Transitions
• Dark sectors in neutron-shining-through-a-wall and nuclear absorption signals
• Constraints on fifth forces and ultralight dark matter from OSIRIS-REx target asteroid Bennu
• Eta Decay and Muonic Puzzles
• The GAmmas from Nuclear Decays Hiding from Investigators (GANDHI) Experiment
• Hadronic Vacuum Polarization in True Muonium
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• Pathfinder for a High Statistics Search for Missing Energy In Gamma Cascades
• Characterizing Dark Matter Signals with Missing Momentum Experiments
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