2023/02/10 by Asli M. Abdullahi, Matheus Hostert, Abdullahi, Asli M. +5 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · Computer Science · #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Computational Physics and Python Applications
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2302.05410
In rich dark sector models, dark photons heavier than tens of MeV can behave as semi-visible particles: their decays contain both visible and invisible final states. We present models containing multiple dark fermions which allow for such decays and inscribe them in the context of inelastic dark matter and heavy neutral leptons scenarios. Our models represent a generalization of the traditional inelastic dark matter model by means of a charge conjugation symmetry. We revisit constraints on dark photons from e+e- colliders and fixed target experiments, including the effect of analysis vetoes on semi-visible decays, A^′ → ψi (ψj → ψk ℓ+ℓ-). We find that in some cases, the BaBar and NA64 experiments no longer exclude large kinetic mixing, ε ∼ 10-2, and, specifically, the related explanation of the discrepancy in the muon (g-2). This reopens an interesting window in parameter space for dark photons with exciting discovery prospects. We point out that a modified missing-energy search at NA64 can target short-lived A^′ decays and directly probe the newly-open parameter space.