Constraints on light scalars from PS191 results

Abstract

We argue that the fixed target experiment PS191 operating on a proton beam of 19.2 GeV at CERN in the eighties was sensitive to hypothetical light scalars produced by mesons and decaying to charged particles. The experiment was dedicated to searches for sterile neutrinos produced in weak meson decays and decaying into final states with pairs of charged particles: electrons and muons. Two charged tracks from the same point have been adopted as the signal signature. Exploiting the same signature we use the negative results of searches at PS191 and place new limits on the light scalars coupled to the Standard Model (SM) particles via mixing with the Higgs boson. In particular, previously allowed region of masses 100--150 MeV and mixing above 4$\times 10^{-4}$ is disfavored. Our analysis can be extended straightforwardly to models with other patterns of scalar couplings to SM particles.

arXiv comment12 pages, 10 figures; v2: replaced with journal version

References in corpus (27)

• Observation of a new particle in the search for the Standard Model Higgs boson with the ATLAS detector at the LHC
• Observation of a new boson at a mass of 125 GeV with the CMS experiment at the LHC
• A facility to Search for Hidden Particles at the CERN SPS: the SHiP physics case
• Physics Beyond Colliders at CERN: Beyond the Standard Model Working Group Report
• Exploring Portals to a Hidden Sector Through Fixed Targets
• Higgs-field Portal into Hidden Sectors
• Probing Light Thermal Dark-Matter With a Higgs Portal Mediator
• Light inflaton Hunter's Guide
• Phenomenology of a very light scalar (100 MeV $<m_h<$ 10 GeV) mixing with the SM Higgs
• Measurement of the very rare $K^{+}\to {\pi }^{+}\nu \bar{\nu }$ decay
• Inflation and Dark Matter in the Higgs Portal of Classically Scale Invariant Standard Model
• Naturally Speaking: The Naturalness Criterion and Physics at the LHC
• Heavy Neutral Leptons at FASER
• Dark Sectors 2016 Workshop: Community Report
• Dark Higgs Bosons at FASER
• Implications of a Light "Dark Higgs" Solution to the $g_{\mu }-2$ Discrepancy
• Long Lived Light Scalars as Probe of Low Scale Seesaw Models
• Relic Gravity Waves and 7 keV Dark Matter from a GeV scale inflaton
• Dark Scalars and Heavy Neutral Leptons at DarkQuest
• Probing the Higgs Portal at the Fermilab Short-Baseline Neutrino Experiments
• On DUNE prospects in the search for sterile neutrinos
• Search for a Higgs portal scalar decaying to electron-positron pairs in the MicroBooNE detector
• LSND Constraints on the Higgs Portal
• Heavy Neutral Leptons from kaon decays in the SHiP experiment
• Double-Hit Signature of Millicharged Particles in 3D segmented neutrino detector
• Exponentially Light Dark Matter from Coannihilation
• Uncertainties of hadronic scalar decay calculations

Cited by in corpus (26)

• Heavy neutral leptons below the kaon mass at hodoscopic detectors
• Dark Higgs Bosons at Colliders
• Scale Invariant FIMP Miracle
• Signatures of Non-thermal Dark Matter with Kination and Early Matter Domination: Gravitational Waves versus Laboratory Searches
• Search for long-lived heavy neutral leptons and Higgs portal scalars decaying in the MicroBooNE detector
• Light Scalars at FASER
• Diraxiogenesis
• (In)Visible signatures of the minimal dark abelian gauge sector
• Search for a long-lived spin-0 mediator in $b\to s$ transitions at the Belle II experiment
• Is light thermal scalar dark matter possible?
• Kinetic Mixing from Kaluza-Klein Modes: A Simple Construction for Portal Matter
• Higgs Squared
• Sensitivity to Kaon Decays to ALPs at Fixed Target Experiments
• Search for a Hidden Sector Scalar from Kaon Decay in the Di-Muon Final State at ICARUS
• Freeze-out Forbidden Dark Matter in the Hidden Sector in the Mass Range from sub-GeV to TeV
• Revisiting PS191 limits on sterile neutrinos
• Complementarity between Cosmic String Gravitational Waves and long-lived particle searches in a laboratory
• Search for a Dark Higgs Boson Produced in Association with Inelastic Dark Matter at the Belle II Experiment
• Search for a light Higgs boson in single-photon decays of ${\rm Y}(1S)$ using ${\rm Y}(2S)\to {\pi }^{+}{\pi }^{-}{\rm Y}(1S)$ tagging method
• Search for the production of Higgs-portal scalar bosons in the NuMI beam using the MicroBooNE detector
• From obstacle to opportunity: uncovering the silver lining of pileup
• New Physics Searches at Kaon and Hyperon Factories
• Proposal for a shared transverse LLP detector for FCC-ee and FCC-hh and a forward LLP detector for FCC-hh
• Long-lived Light Mediators in a Higgs Portal Model at the FCC-ee
• The Forward Physics Facility at the High-Luminosity LHC
• Light inflaton model in a metastable Universe