First Displaced Vertex Search for Electroproduced Dark-Sector Strongly Interacting Massive Particles by the HPS Experiment

2025/11/04 by The HPS Collaboration
Physics and Astronomy · #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Experiment (hep-ex) #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2511.02695

openalex publication_date 2025/11/04 · openalex created_date 2025/11/06 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31

Abstract

The Heavy Photon Search experiment (HPS) is a fixed-target, electron beam experiment designed to search for e⁺e^- mass resonances and displaced decays using a forward acceptance spectrometer. This article details the search for naturally long-lived ``dark" vector mesons (V<sub>D</sub>) arising from a dark sector of beyond-Standard-Model SIMP, characterized by a QCD-like SU(3)<sub>D</sub> symmetry and coupled to the Standard Model photon via a new U(1)<sub>D</sub> gauge interaction mediated by the ``heavy photon", or A^′. The results are based on an integrated luminosity of \SI10608nb^-1 collected during the 2016 HPS Engineering Run. The displaced vertex search for V_D → e⁺e^- in the e⁺e^- invariant mass range 39-179 MeV showed no statistically significant evidence for signal above the QED background.

Citations

• US Cosmic Visions: New Ideas in Dark Matter 2017: Community Report
• Dark Sectors 2016 Workshop: Community Report
• Fundamental Physics at the Intensity Frontier
• Some ways of combining optimum interval upper limits

Related

• The Heavy Photon Search Experiment
• The Heavy Photon Search Experiment
• The Heavy Photon Search Experiment at Jefferson Lab
• The Heavy Photon Search Experiment
• Dark photon searches using displaced vertices at low energy e+e- colliders