Search for dark photon decays to ${\mu }^{+}{\mu }^{-}$ at NA62

Abstract

The NA62 experiment at CERN, designed to study the ultra-rare decay $K^{+}\to {\pi }^{+}\nu \overline{\nu }$, has also collected data in beam-dump mode. In this configuration, dark photons may be produced by protons dumped on an absorber and reach a decay volume beginning 80 m downstream. A search for dark photons decaying in flight to ${\mu }^{+}{\mu }^{-}$ pairs is reported, based on a sample of $1.4\times 10^{17}$ protons on dump collected in 2021. No evidence for a dark photon signal is observed. A region of the parameter space is excluded at 90% CL, improving on previous experimental limits for dark photon masses between 215 and 550 MeV$/c^2$.

arXiv comment23 pages, 16 figures, final version, accepted for publication in JHEP