Search for resonances decaying to photon pairs with masses between 4.9 and 19.4 GeV

2025/07/18 by LHCb collaboration, R. Aaij, A. S. W. Abdelmotteleb +2290 · 2 voices · 1 citation
#hep-ex

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2507.14390

Abstract

A search is presented for axion-like particles (ALPs) with masses between 4.9 and 19.4 GeV decaying to a pair of photons, using proton-proton collisions collected with the LHCb detector during 2018 at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 2.1 fb^-1. The same strategy and sample is used to search for the decays of the B⁰_s, B⁰ and η_b mesons into photon pairs. No significant excess is found. Upper limits on the photon-pair branching fraction times the cross-section of ALP production are determined as a function of the ALP mass. Limits on the branching fractions of the beauty states are determined to be B(B⁰_s→γγ)<2.7×10^-5, B(B⁰→γγ)<0.83×10^-5, and σ(pp→η_b X)\timesB(η_b→γγ)<765 pb at 95 % confidence level.

Cited by

• New Bounds on Heavy QCD Axions from Big Bang Nucleosynthesis

Discussions

• Search for resonances decaying to photon pairs with masses between 4.9 and 19.4 GeV arxiv.org/abs/2507.14390 - Upper limits on the photon-pair branching fraction times the cross-section of ALP product [bsky, 5 points, 1 comments]
• #LHCbpaper: Search for resonances decaying to photon pairs with masses between 4.9 and 19.4 GeV (arXiv:2507.14390) https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.14390 [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]

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