Search results for "Hidden sector"
showing 10 items of 38 documents
Search for K+ decays to a muon and invisible particles
2021
The NA62 experiment at CERN reports searches for $K^+\to\mu^+N$ and $K^+\to\mu^+\nu X$ decays, where $N$ and $X$ are massive invisible particles, using the 2016-2018 data set. The $N$ particle is assumed to be a heavy neutral lepton, and the results are expressed as upper limits of ${\cal O}(10^{-8})$ of the neutrino mixing parameter $|U_{\mu4}|^2$ for $N$ masses in the range 200-384 MeV/$c^2$ and lifetime exceeding 50 ns. The $X$ particle is considered a scalar or vector hidden sector mediator decaying to an invisible final state, and upper limits of the decay branching fraction for $X$ masses in the range 10-370 MeV/$c^2$ are reported for the first time, ranging from ${\cal O}(10^{-5})$ t…
The search for dark matter gauge bosons with the Mainz Microtron
2011
Abstract A pilot experiment in the search for light gauge bosons at the spectrometer setup of the A1 collaboration at MAMI is presented. Light gauge bosons arise naturally in a wide range of theoretical approaches beyond the standard model and are in accordance with several pieces of experimental evidence not yet understood in the standard model. A first test measurement at MAMI showed that existing limits on the coupling of such a light gauge boson can be improved by nearly an order of magnitude by fixed target experiments at existing electron accelerators.
Observational constraints on decoupled hidden sectors
2016
We consider an extension of the Standard Model with a singlet sector consisting of a real (pseudo)scalar and a Dirac fermion coupled with the Standard Model only via the scalar portal. We assume that the portal coupling is weak enough for the singlet sector not to thermalize with the Standard Model allowing the production of singlet particles via the freeze-in mechanism. If the singlet sector interacts with itself sufficiently strongly, it may thermalize within itself, resulting in dark matter abundance determined by the freeze-out mechanism operating within the singlet sector. We investigate this scenario in detail. In particular, we show that requiring the absence of inflationary isocurva…
Reheating the Standard Model from a hidden sector
2016
We consider a scenario where the inflaton decays to a hidden sector thermally decoupled from the visible Standard Model sector. A tiny portal coupling between the hidden and the visible sectors later heats the visible sector so that the Standard Model degrees of freedom come to dominate the energy density of the Universe before Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. We find that this scenario is viable, although obtaining the correct dark matter abundance and retaining successful Big Bang Nucleosynthesis is not obvious. We also show that the isocurvature perturbations constituted by a primordial Higgs condensate are not problematic for the viability of the scenario.
Icecube/DeepCore tests for novel explanations of the MiniBooNE anomaly
2019
While the low-energy excess observed at MiniBooNE remains unchallenged, it has become increasingly difficult to reconcile it with the results from other sterile neutrino searches and cosmology. Recently, it has been shown that non-minimal models with new particles in a hidden sector could provide a better fit to the data. As their main ingredients they require a GeV-scale $Z'$, kinetically mixed with the photon, and an unstable heavy neutrino with a mass in the 150 MeV range that mixes with the light neutrinos. In this letter we point out that atmospheric neutrino experiments (and, in particular, IceCube/DeepCore) could probe a significant fraction of the parameter space of such models by l…
Dark, Cold, and Noisy: Constraining Secluded Hidden Sectors with Gravitational Waves
2018
We explore gravitational wave signals arising from first-order phase transitions occurring in a secluded hidden sector, allowing for the possibility that the hidden sector may have a different temperature than the Standard Model sector. We present the sensitivity to such scenarios for both current and future gravitational wave detectors in a model-independent fashion. Since secluded hidden sectors are of particular interest for dark matter models at the MeV scale or below, we pay special attention to the reach of pulsar timing arrays. Cosmological constraints on light degrees of freedom restrict the number of sub-MeV particles in a hidden sector, as well as the hidden sector temperature. Ne…
Search for long-lived neutral particles produced in pp collisions at s=13 TeV decaying into displaced hadronic jets in the ATLAS inner detector and …
2020
A search is presented for pair production of long-lived neutral particles using 33 fb − 1 of √ s = 13 TeV proton–proton collision data, collected during 2016 by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. This search focuses on a topology in which one long-lived particle decays in the ATLAS inner detector and the other decays in the muon spectrometer. Special techniques are employed to reconstruct the displaced tracks and vertices in the inner detector and in the muon spectrometer. One event is observed that passes the full event selection, which is consistent with the estimated background. Limits are placed on scalar boson propagators with masses from 125 GeV to 1000 GeV decaying into pairs of …
Generation patterns, modified $\gamma-Z$ mixing, and hidden sector with dark matter candidates as framed standard model results
2018
A descriptive summary is given of the results to-date from the framed standard model (FSM) which: Assigns geometric meaning to the Higgs field and to fermion generations, hence offering an explanation for the observed mass and mixing patterns of quarks and leptons, reproducing near-quantitatively 17 of SM parameters with only 7. Predicts a new vector boson [Formula: see text] which mixes with [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], leading to deviations from the SM mixing scheme. For [Formula: see text] TeV, these deviations are within present experimental errors but should soon be detectable at LHC when experimental accuracy is further improved. Suggests the existence of a hidden sec…
Prospects of searching for (un)particles from Hidden Sectors using rapidity correlations in multiparticle production at the LHC
2008
Most signatures of new physics have been studied on the transverse plane with respect to the beam direction at the LHC where background is much reduced. In this paper we propose the analysis of inclusive longitudinal (pseudo) rapidity correlations among final-state (charged) particles in order to search for (un)particles belonging to a hidden sector beyond the Standard Model, using a selected sample of p-p minimum bias events (applying appropriate off-line cuts on events based on, e.g. minijets, high-multiplicity, event shape variables, high-p(perpendicular to) leptons and photons, etc.) collected at the early running of the LHC. To this aim, we examine inclusive and semi-inclusive two-part…
Searching for new physics with three-particle correlations in pp collisions at the LHC
2018
New phenomena involving pseudorapidity and azimuthal correlations among final state particles in $pp$ collisions at the LHC can hint at the existence of hidden sectors beyond the Standard Model. In this paper we rely on a correlated-cluster picture of multiparticle production, which was shown to account for the ridge effect, to assess the effect of a hidden sector on three-particle correlations concluding that there is a potential signature of new physics that can be directly tested by experiments using well-known techniques.