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arXiv · 2305.04964

SENSEI: Search for Millicharged Particles produced in the NuMI Beam

Liron Barak·Itay M. Bloch·Ana M. Botti·Mariano Cababie·Gustavo Cancelo·Luke Chaplinsky·Michael Crisler·Alex Drlica-Wagner·Rouven Essig·Juan Estrada·Erez Etzion·Guillermo Fernandez Moroni·Roni Harnik·Stephen E. Holland·Yaron Korn·Zhen Liu·Sravan Munagavalasa·Aviv Orly·Santiago E. Perez·Ryan Plestid·Dario Rodrigues·Nathan A. Saffold·Silvia Scorza·Aman Singal·Miguel Sofo Haro·Leandro Stefanazzi·Kelly Stifter·Javier Tiffenberg·Sho Uemura·Tomer Volansky·Tien-Tien Yu
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Abstract

Millicharged particles appear in several extensions of the Standard Model, but have not yet been detected. These hypothetical particles could be produced by an intense proton beam striking a fixed target. We use data collected in 2020 by the SENSEI experiment in the MINOS cavern at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory to search for ultra-relativistic millicharged particles produced in collisions of protons in the NuMI beam with a fixed graphite target. The absence of any ionization events with 3 to 6 electrons in the SENSEI data allow us to place world-leading constraints on millicharged particles for masses between 30 MeV to 380 MeV. This work also demonstrates the potential of utilizing low-threshold detectors to investigate new particles in beam-dump experiments, and motivates a future experiment designed specifically for this purpose.

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Liron Barak, Itay M. Bloch, Ana M. Botti, Mariano Cababie, Gustavo Cancelo, Luke Chaplinsky, Michael Crisler, Alex Drlica-Wagner, Rouven Essig, Juan Estrada, Erez Etzion, Guillermo Fernandez Moroni, Roni Harnik, Stephen E. Holland, Yaron Korn, Zhen Liu, Sravan Munagavalasa, Aviv Orly, Santiago E. Perez, Ryan Plestid, Dario Rodrigues, Nathan A. Saffold, Silvia Scorza, Aman Singal, Miguel Sofo Haro, Leandro Stefanazzi, Kelly Stifter, Javier Tiffenberg, Sho Uemura, Tomer Volansky, Tien-Tien Yu. 2023-05-08. SENSEI: Search for Millicharged Particles produced in the NuMI Beam. https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.04964

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