Search for a Hidden Sector Scalar from Kaon Decay in the Di-Muon Final State at ICARUS

Abstract

We present a search for long-lived particles (LLPs) produced from kaon decay that decay to two muons inside the ICARUS neutrino detector. This channel would be a signal of hidden sector models that can address outstanding issues in particle physics such as the strong CP problem and the microphysical origin of dark matter. The search is performed with data collected in the Neutrinos at the Main Injector (NuMI) beam at Fermilab corresponding to $2.41\times 10^{20}$ protons-on-target. No new physics signal is observed, and we set world-leading limits on heavy QCD axions, as well as for the Higgs portal scalar among dedicated searches. Limits are also presented in a model-independent way applicable to any new physics model predicting the process $K\to \pi +S(\to \mu \mu )$, for a long-lived particle S. This result is the first search for new physics performed with the ICARUS detector at Fermilab. It paves the way for the future program of long-lived particle searches at ICARUS.

Updated after journal review

References in corpus (21)

• The Low-Energy Effective Theory of Axions and ALPs
• Flavor probes of axion-like particles
• Anomalous solutions to the strong CP problem
• Measurement of the very rare $K^{+}\to {\pi }^{+}\nu \bar{\nu }$ decay
• Inclusive production of charged pions in p+C collisions at 158 GeV/c beam momentum
• Running in the ALPs
• Search for heavy neutrinos in $K^{+}\to {\mu }^{+}{\nu }_H$ decays
• Recent highlights from GENIE v3
• Consistent treatment of axions in the weak chiral Lagrangian
• Constraints on light scalars from PS191 results
• Geant4Reweight: a framework for evaluating and propagating hadronic interaction uncertainties in GEANT4
• Searches for Lepton Number Violation and Resonances in $K^{\pm }\to \pi \mu \mu$ Decays
• Grand Color Axion
• Search for long-lived heavy neutral leptons and Higgs portal scalars decaying in the MicroBooNE detector
• Enhancing Searches for Heavy QCD Axions via Dimuon Final States
• Overhaul and Installation of the ICARUS-T600 Liquid Argon TPC Electronics for the FNAL Short Baseline Neutrino Program
• First Constraints on Heavy QCD Axions with a Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber using the ArgoNeuT Experiment
• pyBumpHunter: A model independent bump hunting tool in Python for High Energy Physics analyses
• Sensitivity to Kaon Decays to ALPs at Fixed Target Experiments
• Neutrino-induced coherent ${\pi }^{+}$ production in C, CH, Fe and Pb at $⟨E_{\nu }⟩\sim 6$ GeV
• Angular dependent measurement of electron-ion recombination in liquid argon for ionization calorimetry in the ICARUS liquid argon time projection chamber

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Operation of the Trigger System for the ICARUS Detector at Fermilab
• Search for the production of Higgs-portal scalar bosons in the NuMI beam using the MicroBooNE detector
• Enhanced active-sterile neutrino polarizability at the intensity frontier
• Neutrino Induced Charged Current Coherent Pion Production for Constraining the Muon Neutrino Flux at DUNE