Probing the Higgs Portal at the Fermilab Short-Baseline Neutrino Experiments

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Autori principali: Batell, Brian, Berger, Joshua, Ismail, Ahmed
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2019
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author Batell, Brian
Berger, Joshua
Ismail, Ahmed
author_facet Batell, Brian
Berger, Joshua
Ismail, Ahmed
contents The Fermilab Short-Baseline Neutrino (SBN) experiments, MicroBooNE, ICARUS, and SBND, are expected to have significant sensitivity to light weakly coupled hidden sector particles. Here we study the capability of the SBN experiments to probe dark scalars interacting through the Higgs portal. We investigate production of dark scalars using both the Fermilab Booster 8 GeV and NuMI 120 GeV proton beams, simulating kaons decaying to dark scalars and taking into account the beamline geometry. We also investigate strategies to mitigate backgrounds from beam-related neutrino scattering events. We find that SBND, with its comparatively short ${\cal O}(100\ {\rm m})$ baseline, will have the best sensitivity to scalars produced with Booster, while ICARUS, with its large detector volume, will provide the best limits on off-axis dark scalar production from NuMI. The SBN experiments can provide leading tests of dark scalars with masses in the 50 - 350 MeV range in the near term. Our results motivate dedicated experimental searches for dark scalars and other long-lived hidden sector states at these experiments.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_1909_11670
institution arXiv
publishDate 2019
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Probing the Higgs Portal at the Fermilab Short-Baseline Neutrino Experiments
Batell, Brian
Berger, Joshua
Ismail, Ahmed
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
High Energy Physics - Experiment
The Fermilab Short-Baseline Neutrino (SBN) experiments, MicroBooNE, ICARUS, and SBND, are expected to have significant sensitivity to light weakly coupled hidden sector particles. Here we study the capability of the SBN experiments to probe dark scalars interacting through the Higgs portal. We investigate production of dark scalars using both the Fermilab Booster 8 GeV and NuMI 120 GeV proton beams, simulating kaons decaying to dark scalars and taking into account the beamline geometry. We also investigate strategies to mitigate backgrounds from beam-related neutrino scattering events. We find that SBND, with its comparatively short ${\cal O}(100\ {\rm m})$ baseline, will have the best sensitivity to scalars produced with Booster, while ICARUS, with its large detector volume, will provide the best limits on off-axis dark scalar production from NuMI. The SBN experiments can provide leading tests of dark scalars with masses in the 50 - 350 MeV range in the near term. Our results motivate dedicated experimental searches for dark scalars and other long-lived hidden sector states at these experiments.
title Probing the Higgs Portal at the Fermilab Short-Baseline Neutrino Experiments
topic High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
High Energy Physics - Experiment
url https://arxiv.org/abs/1909.11670