The GAmmas from Nuclear Decays Hiding from Investigators (GANDHI) Experiment

Abstract

We propose a high statistics experiment to search for invisible decay modes in nuclear gamma cascades. A radioactive source (such as ${}^{60}$Co or ${}^{24}$Na) that triggers gamma cascades is placed in the middle of a large, hermetically sealed scintillation detector, enabling photon identification with high accuracy. Invisible modes are identified by establishing the absence of a photon in a well-identified gamma cascade. We propose the use of fast scintillators with nanosecond timing resolution, permitting event rates as high as $10^7$ Hz. Our analysis of the feasibility of this setup indicates that branching fractions as small as $10^{-12}-10^{-14}$ can be probed. This experimental protocol benefits from the fact that a search for invisible modes is penalized for weak coupling only in the production of the new particle. If successfully implemented, this experiment is an exquisite probe of particles with mass below $\sim$4 MeV that lie in the poorly constrained supernova "trapping window" that exists between 100 keV - 30 MeV. Such particles have been invoked as mediators between dark matter and nucleons, explain the proton radius and $(g-2{)}_{\mu }$ anomalies and potentially power the shock wave in type II supernovae. The hadronic axion could also be probed with modifications to the proposed setup.

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Cited by in corpus (10)

• Recent Progress in the Physics of Axions and Axion-Like Particles
• Exploring the robustness of stellar cooling constraints on light particles
• Direct Detection of Spin-(In)dependent Nuclear Scattering of Sub-GeV Dark Matter Using Molecular Excitations
• Relaxation of the Cosmological Constant
• Prospects for detecting axionlike particles at the Coherent CAPTAIN-Mills experiment
• Axion-Like Particle Production at Beam Dump Experiments with Distinct Nuclear Excitation Lines
• Mechanical detection of nuclear decays
• Gamma Ray Signals from Cosmic Ray Scattering on Axion-Like Particles
• Pathfinder for a High Statistics Search for Missing Energy In Gamma Cascades
• Searching for exotic scalars at fusion reactors