Looking forward to photon-coupled long-lived particles II: dark axion portal

Abstract

The dark axion portal is a dimension-5 coupling between an axion-like particle (ALP), a photon, and a dark photon, which is one of the targets of the intensity frontier searches looking for $\sim\,$sub-GeV long-lived particles (LLPs). In this work, we re-examine the limits set by existing detectors such as CHARM and NuCal, and by future experiments such as FASER2, MATHUSLA, and SHiP. We extend previous works by i) considering several mass regimes of the Dark Sector (DS) particles, leading to an extended lifetime regime of the unstable species, ii) including LLPs production occurring in previously neglected vector meson decays that actually dominate the LLP yield, and iii) by implementing secondary LLP production. It takes place by Primakoff-like upscattering of lighter DS species into LLP on tungsten layers of neutrino emulsion detector FASER$\nu$2. This process will allow FASER2 to cover a significant portion of the $\gamma c\tau \sim 1\,m$ region of the parameter space that is otherwise difficult to cover due to the large ($\sim O(100)\,m$) distance between the primary LLP production point and the decay vessel, where LLP decays take place, which is required in typical beam-dumb experiments for SM background suppression.