Data-Driven Predictions for Dark Photon and Millicharged Particle Production

Abstract

Accurate signal predictions are essential for interpreting and optimizing fixed-target searches for new physics. Even in minimal models such as the dark photon ($A^{\prime }$) or millicharged particles (mCPs), theoretical uncertainties in hadronic production can be substantial. We introduce a data-driven framework that predicts both the rate and kinematic distributions of $A^{\prime }$ and mCP production directly from measured dilepton events, without relying on specific theoretical production models. This method uses the close correspondence between amplitudes for emission of $A^{\prime }$ or mCPs, and for off-shell Standard Model photon production, the latter being experimentally measurable in full differential form. We demonstrate that normalizing flow models can learn these distributions from data and serve as a fast, realistic Monte Carlo generator for dark sector signal simulations.

13 pages, 10 figures; matches published version

References in corpus (52)

• SciPy 1.0--Fundamental Algorithms for Scientific Computing in Python
• Array Programming with NumPy
• Normalizing Flows: An Introduction and Review of Current Methods
• New Fixed-Target Experiments to Search for Dark Gauge Forces
• Physics Beyond Colliders at CERN: Beyond the Standard Model Working Group Report
• Exploring Portals to a Hidden Sector Through Fixed Targets
• New Exclusion Limits on Dark Gauge Forces from Proton Bremsstrahlung in Beam-Dump Data
• Insights on Dark Matter from Hydrogen during Cosmic Dawn
• Turning off the Lights: How Dark is Dark Matter?
• Severely Constraining Dark Matter Interpretations of the 21-cm Anomaly
• Event Generation with Normalizing Flows
• Dark Sectors at the Fermilab SeaQuest Experiment
• Adaptive Multidimensional Integration: VEGAS Enhanced
• Inclusive Dark Photon Search at LHCb
• OmniFold: A Method to Simultaneously Unfold All Observables
• Making dark matter out of light: freeze-in from plasma effects
• Narrowing the window for millicharged particles by CMB anisotropy
• Light dark matter in neutrino beams: production modelling and scattering signatures at MiniBooNE, T2K and SHiP
• Millicharged particles in neutrino experiments
• J/psi and psi' production and their normal nuclear absorption in proton-nucleus collisions at 400 GeV
• i-flow: High-dimensional Integration and Sampling with Normalizing Flows
• Improved Limits on Millicharged Particles Using the ArgoNeuT Experiment at Fermilab
• Exploring phase space with Neural Importance Sampling
• Origin of the low-mass electron pair excess in light nucleus-nucleus collisions
• Precision tests of fundamental physics with $\eta$ and ${\eta }^{\prime }$ mesons
• CaloFlow: Fast and Accurate Generation of Calorimeter Showers with Normalizing Flows
• Searches for Decays of New Particles in the DUNE Multi-Purpose Near Detector
• Dark photon production through positron annihilation in beam-dump experiments
• Proton Fixed-Target Scintillation Experiment to Search for Minicharged Particles
• Precision study of the $\eta \to {\mu }^{+}{\mu }^{-}\gamma$ and $\omega \to {\mu }^{+}{\mu }^{-}{\pi }^0$ electromagnetic transition form-factors and of the $\rho \to {\mu }^{+}{\mu }^{-}$ line shape in NA60
• Resonant production of dark photons in positron beam dump experiments
• Phase Space Sampling and Inference from Weighted Events with Autoregressive Flows
• J/psi production in proton-nucleus collisions at 158 and 400 GeV
• MadNIS -- Neural Multi-Channel Importance Sampling
• Probing millicharged particles with NA64 experiment at CERN
• Dark Sector Production via Proton Bremsstrahlung
• normflows: A PyTorch Package for Normalizing Flows
• The active muon shield in the SHiP experiment
• The hadronic light-by-light contribution to the muon's anomalous magnetic moment
• New production channels for light dark matter in hadronic showers
• Axion-like Particle Searches at DarkQuest
• Measurement of the ${\pi }^0$ electromagnetic transition form factor slope
• Formalism for dilepton production via virtual photon bremsstrahlung in hadronic reactions
• Searches for long-lived dark photons at proton accelerator experiments
• Towards a data-driven model of hadronization using normalizing flows
• Dark photon production via elastic proton bremsstrahlung with non-zero momentum transfer
• Low Mass Dimuon Production in p-A Collisions at $\sqrt{s}=27.5$ GeV with NA60
• Comparison of Affine and Rational Quadratic Spline Coupling and Autoregressive Flows through Robust Statistical Tests
• Pauli form factor contributions to the inelastic proton bremsstrahlung and dark photon production
• Dark photon production via inelastic proton bremsstrahlung with Pauli form factor
• Nuclear dependence of light neutral meson production in p-A collisions at 400 GeV with NA60
• A Practical Guide to Unbinned Unfolding