Search for Dark Photons with the FASER detector at the LHC

Abstract

The FASER experiment at the LHC is designed to search for light, weakly-interacting particles produced in proton-proton collisions at the ATLAS interaction point that travel in the far-forward direction. The first results from a search for dark photons decaying to an electron-positron pair, using a dataset corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 27.0 fb${}^{-1}$ collected at center-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s}=13.6$ TeV in 2022 in LHC Run 3, are presented. No events are seen in an almost background-free analysis, yielding world-leading constraints on dark photons with couplings $\epsilon \sim 2\times 10^{-5}-1\times 10^{-4}$ and masses $\sim$ 17 MeV - 70 MeV. The analysis is also used to probe the parameter space of a massive gauge boson from a U(1)${}_{B-L}$ model, with couplings $g_{B-L}\sim 5\times 10^{-6}-2\times 10^{-5}$ and masses $\sim$ 15 MeV - 40 MeV excluded for the first time.

19 pages, 7 figures

References in corpus (9)

• Dark Matter Candidates from Particle Physics and Methods of Detection
• Secluded WIMP Dark Matter
• Search for a dark photon in e+e- collisions at BABAR
• The WIMPless Miracle: Dark Matter Particles without Weak-scale Masses or Weak Interactions
• HistFitter software framework for statistical data analysis
• New Limits on Hidden Photons from Past Electron Beam Dumps
• Search for a New B-L Z' Gauge Boson with the NA64 Experiment at CERN
• The tracking detector of the FASER experiment
• Revisiting sterile neutrino dark matter in gauged $U(1{)}_{B-L}$ model

Cited by in corpus (20)

• Searches for long-lived dark photons at proton accelerator experiments
• Discovering neutrino tridents at the Large Hadron Collider
• Search for Leptonic Decays of Dark Photons at NA62
• Leptophilic Axion-like Particles at Forward Detectors
• Neutrino Experiments at the Large Hadron Collider
• The LHC as a TeV Muon Beam Dump: Muonphilic Scalars at FASER
• Deep-Inelastic Scattering at TeV Energies with LHC Muons
• Search for hadronic decays of feebly-interacting particles at NA62
• Thermal Relic Right-Handed Neutrino Dark Matter
• Searching for long-lived light neutralinos and axionlike particles at the SHiNESS experiment
• Light-shinning-through-thin-wall radio frequency cavities for probing dark photon
• Search for light neutral particles decaying promptly into collimated pairs of electrons or muons in $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector
• Discovery potential of a long-lived partner of inelastic dark matter at MATHUSLA in $U(1{)}_{X_3}$ extension of the standard model
• Long-lived Light Mediators in a Higgs Portal Model at the FCC-ee
• Constraints on Kinetic Mixing of Dark Photons from Dilepton Spectra
• Letter of Intent: The Forward Physics Facility
• New Physics Searches via Beam Normal Spin Asymmetry in Bhabha Scattering
• A SHIFT of Perspective: Observing Neutrinos at CMS and ATLAS
• Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics at Colliders
• Exploring the dark axion portal in the LUXE-NPOD experiment