Dark Photons from Nuclear Transitions

Abstract

Light new particles can be emitted in decays of excited nuclear states. Experiments analyzing such transitions and incorporating high-resolution detectors can be sensitive to new MeV-scale physics at a level competitive with upcoming collider and other fixed target experiments, provided sufficient luminosity. We demonstrate this in the case of the ${}^8\text{Be}$ system, showing that searches targeting the reported anomaly in ${}^8\text{Be}$ nuclear transitions can also be sensitive to currently unexplored regions of the canonical dark photon parameter space with 1 MeV $\lesssim m_{A^{\prime }}\lesssim 18$ MeV and ${\epsilon }^2\gtrsim 10^{-7}$. These experiments could be performed on a short timescale, at low cost, and directly probe both the hadronic and leptonic couplings of light hidden particles.

13 pages, 3 figures. Comments welcome!

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