arXiv subjects

David G. Hitlin

Publications and source records attributed to David G. Hitlin.

14 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Expected Sensitivity of the Light Dark Matter eXperiment to Long-Lived Dark Photons and Axion-Like Particles

The Light Dark Matter eXperiment (LDMX) is an electron-beam fixed-target experiment primarily designed to achieve world-leading, model-independent sensitivity to sub-GeV dark matter particles. LDMX aims to identify dark sector particle production through the detection of events with substantial missing energy and momentum, a signature of invisible particles escaping detection. Beyond this primary objective, LDMX offers a complementary search strategy for long-lived, visibly decaying particles, such as dark photons and axion-like particles. We present the first detailed evaluation of the ability of LDMX to identify visibly decaying, long-lived particles that couple to electrons using a detailed simulation, based on the Geant4-toolkit, that incorporates realistic detection efficiencies and background levels. We demonstrate that LDMX can achieve a sensitivity that is competitive with other experiments that are currently running. The models explored in this paper are distinct and complementary to those probed in the LDMX flagship missing-momentum analysis. Through searching for both invisible dark matter and visibly decaying long-lived signatures, LDMX will significantly advance the search for light dark matter and provide a broad exploration of the sub-GeV dark sector.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2025

LDMX -- The Light Dark Matter eXperiment

The Light Dark Matter eXperiment (LDMX) is an electron fixed-target experiment optimized to search for sub-GeV dark matter production through the missing momentum signature. LDMX is designed to operate in End Station A at SLAC, using an 8 GeV electron beam accelerated alongside the LCLS-II drive beam. The design of the apparatus is strongly motivated by the performance requirements of a high-rate missing momentum search and leverages detector technologies and designs from other experiments along with existing facilities at SLAC. LDMX will improve on previous results by up to three orders of magnitude, enabling broad sensitivity to dark sector scenarios including the dark matter interaction strengths motivated by freeze-out of MeV-GeV mass dark matter to the observed relic abundance. With hermetic forward coverage, LDMX also has sensitivity to visible signatures of dark sectors and provides a unique probe of electron-nuclear interactions important to interpreting data from accelerator-based neutrino experiments. This report encompasses the technical design of the LDMX Detector, its simulated performance, and the physics capabilities of the experiment.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2025

Sensitivity of an Early Dark Matter Search using the Electromagnetic Calorimeter as a Target for the Light Dark Matter eXperiment

The Light Dark Matter eXperiment (LDMX) is proposed to employ a thin tungsten target and a multi-GeV electron beam to carry out a missing momentum search for the production of dark matter candidate particles. We study the sensitivity for a complementary missing-energy-based search using the LDMX Electromagnetic Calorimeter as an active target with a focus on early running. In this context, we construct an event selection from a limited set of variables that projects sensitivity into previously-unexplored regions of light dark matter phase space -- down to an effective dark photon interaction strength $y$ of approximately $2\times10^{-13}$ ($5\times10^{-12}$) for a 1MeV (10MeV) dark matter candidate mass.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2024

A New Determination of the (Z,A) Dependence of Coherent Muon-to-Electron Conversion

Should muon-to-electron conversion in the field of a nucleus be found in the current generation of experiments, the measurement of the atomic number dependence of the process will become an important experimental goal. We present a new treatment of the (Z,A) dependence of coherent muon-to-electron conversion in 236 isotopes. Our approach differs from previous treatments in several ways. Firstly, we include the effect of permanent quadrupole deformation on the charged lepton flavor violating matrix elements, using the method of Barrett moments. This method also enables the addition of muonic X-ray nuclear size and shape determinations of the charge distribution to the electron scattering results used previously. Secondly, we employ a Hartree-Bogoliubov model to calculate neutron-related matrix elements for even-even nuclei. This takes into account the quadrupole deformation of the neutron distributions and the fact that neutrons are, in general, in different shell model orbits than protons. The calculated conversion rates differ from previous calculations, particularly in the region of large permanent quadrupole deformation. Finally, we propose an alternative normalization of the muon-to-electron conversion rated, which related more closely to what a given experiment acturally measures, and better separate lepton physics from nuclear physics effects.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2023

Photon-rejection Power of the Light Dark Matter eXperiment in an 8 GeV Beam

The Light Dark Matter eXperiment (LDMX) is an electron-beam fixed-target experiment designed to achieve comprehensive model independent sensitivity to dark matter particles in the sub-GeV mass region. An upgrade to the LCLS-II accelerator will increase the beam energy available to LDMX from 4 to 8 GeV. Using detailed GEANT4-based simulations, we investigate the effect of the increased beam energy on the capabilities to separate signal and background, and demonstrate that the veto methodology developed for 4 GeV successfully rejects photon-induced backgrounds for at least $2\times10^{14}$ electrons on target at 8 GeV.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2023

Current Status and Future Prospects for the Light Dark Matter eXperiment

The constituents of dark matter are still unknown, and the viable possibilities span a vast range of masses. The physics community has established searching for sub-GeV dark matter as a high priority and identified accelerator-based experiments as an essential facet of this search strategy. A key goal of the accelerator-based dark matter program is testing the broad idea of thermally produced sub-GeV dark matter through experiments designed to directly produce dark matter particles. The most sensitive way to search for the production of light dark matter is to use a primary electron beam to produce it in fixed-target collisions. The Light Dark Matter eXperiment (LDMX) is an electron-beam fixed-target missing-momentum experiment that realizes this approach and provides unique sensitivity to light dark matter in the sub-GeV range. This contribution provides an overview of the theoretical motivation, the main experimental challenges, how LDMX addresses these challenges, and projected sensitivities. We further describe the capabilities of LDMX to explore other interesting new and standard physics, such as visibly-decaying axion and vector mediators or rare meson decays, and to provide timely electronuclear scattering measurements that will inform the modeling of neutrino-nucleus scattering for DUNE.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2022

Charged Lepton Flavor Violation

This reports summarizes the activities of the Charged Lepton Flavor Violation group of the 2022 Community Summer Study. Charged lepton flavor violating reactions provide unique information on the scale and dynamics of flavor generation, and more generally a wide range of New Physics scenarios, complementing direct searches performed at collider and neutrino physics experiments. These processes already probe mass scales up to thousands of TeV, and an observation would be an unambiguous signature of physics beyond the Standard Model. We review the current status and future experimental opportunities in muon, tau and heavy state transitions, with a focus on US-led initiatives.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2020

The Very Big ILC

In the spirit of Leon Lederman's 1977 proposal for the siting of the VBA, we propose a version of the International Linear Collider along the US-Mexico border.

physics.pop-ph↗

arXiv2019

A High Efficiency Photon Veto for the Light Dark Matter eXperiment

Fixed-target experiments using primary electron beams can be powerful discovery tools for light dark matter in the sub-GeV mass range. The Light Dark Matter eXperiment (LDMX) is designed to measure missing momentum in high-rate electron fixed-target reactions with beam energies of 4 GeV to 16 GeV. A prerequisite for achieving several important sensitivity milestones is the capability to efficiently reject backgrounds associated with few-GeV bremsstrahlung, by twelve orders of magnitude, while maintaining high efficiency for signal. The primary challenge arises from events with photo-nuclear reactions faking the missing-momentum property of a dark matter signal. We present a methodology developed for the LDMX detector concept that is capable of the required rejection. By employing a detailed GEANT4-based model of the detector response, we demonstrate that the sampling calorimetry proposed for LDMX can achieve better than $10^{-13}$ rejection of few-GeV photons. This suggests that the luminosity-limited sensitivity of LDMX can be realized at 4 GeV and higher beam energies.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2018

Light Dark Matter eXperiment (LDMX)

We present an initial design study for LDMX, the Light Dark Matter Experiment, a small-scale accelerator experiment having broad sensitivity to both direct dark matter and mediator particle production in the sub-GeV mass region. LDMX employs missing momentum and energy techniques in multi-GeV electro-nuclear fixed-target collisions to explore couplings to electrons in uncharted regions that extend down to and below levels that are motivated by direct thermal freeze-out mechanisms. LDMX would also be sensitive to a wide range of visibly and invisibly decaying dark sector particles, thereby addressing many of the science drivers highlighted in the 2017 US Cosmic Visions New Ideas in Dark Matter Community Report. LDMX would achieve the required sensitivity by leveraging existing and developing detector technologies from the CMS, HPS and Mu2e experiments. In this paper, we present our initial design concept, detailed GEANT-based studies of detector performance, signal and background processes, and a preliminary analysis approach. We demonstrate how a first phase of LDMX could expand sensitivity to a variety of light dark matter, mediator, and millicharge particles by several orders of magnitude in coupling over the broad sub-GeV mass range.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2013

Global CKM Fits with the Scan Method

We present results of a unitary triangle fit based on the scan method. This frequentist approach employs Gaussian uncertainties for experimental quantities, but makes no arbitrary assumptions about the distribution of theoretical errors. Instead, we perform a large number of fits, scanning over regions of plausible theory errors for each quantity, and retain those fits meeting a specific confidence level criterion, thereby constraining the $\bar ρ- \bar η$ plane using the standard input measurements (CKM matrix elements, $\sin2 β, B^0_{d,s}$ mixing, $ε_K$) as well as branching fraction and \CP asymmetry measurements of B decays to $PP, PV, VV$, and $a_1 P$ final states to determine $α$, $D^{(*)}K^{(*)}$ modes to determine $γ$, and $D^{(*)}π$ and $Dρ$ modes to determine $2β+γ$. We parameterize individual decay amplitudes in terms of color-allowed tree, color-suppressed tree, penguin, singlet penguin, electroweak penguin, as well as $W$-exchange and $W$-annihilation amplitudes. With this parameterization, we obtain a good fit to the measured branching fractions and \CP asymmetries within the Standard Model {\it ansatz}, with no new physics contributions. This simultaneous fit allows us to determine the correlation between $α$ and $β$ as well as between $γ$ and $β$.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2013

The next generation of $μ -> e γ$ and $μ -> 3e$ CLFV search experiments

We explore the possibilities for extending the sensitivity of current searches for the charged lepton flavor violating decays $μ -> e γ$ and $μ -> eee$. A future facility such as Project X at Fermilab could provide a much more intense stopping $μ^+$ beam, facilitating more sensitive searches, but improved detectors will be required as well. Current searches are limited by accidental and physics backgrounds, as well as by the total number of stopped muons. One of the limiting factors in current detectors for $μ -> e γ$ searches is the photon energy resolution of the calorimeter. We present a new fast Monte Carlo simulation of a conceptual design of a new experimental concept that detects converted $e^+e^-$ pairs from signal photons, taking advantage of the improved energy resolution of a pair spectrometer based on a silicon charged particle tracker. We also study a related detector design for a next generation $μ\to eee$ search experiment.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2005

The Discovery Potential of a Super B Factory

The Proceedings of the 2003 SLAC Workshops on flavor physics with a high luminosity asymmetric e+e- collider. The sensitivity of flavor physics to physics beyond the Standard Model is addressed in detail, in the context of the improvement of experimental measurements and theoretical calculations.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2000

First CP Violation Results from BABAR

We present a preliminary measurement of time-dependent CP-violating asymmetries in B^0-->J/psi K_S and B^0-->psi(2S) K_S decays recorded by the BABAR detector at the PEP-II asymmetric B Factory at SLAC. The data sample consists of 9.0 fb-1 collected at the Upsilon(4S) resonance and 0.8 fb-1 off-resonance. One of the neutral B mesons, produced in pairs at the Upsilon(4S), is fully reconstructed. The flavor of the other neutral B meson is tagged at the time of its decay, mainly with the charge of identified leptons and kaons. The time difference between the decays is determined by measuring the distance between the decay vertices. Wrong-tag probabilities and the time resolution function are measured with samples of fully-reconstructed semileptonic and hadronic neutral B final states. The value of the asymmetry amplitude, sin(2*beta), is determined from a maximum likelihood fit to the time distribution of 120 tagged B^0-->J/psi K_S and B^0-->psi(2S) K_S candidates: sin(2*beta) = 0.12+/-0.37(stat)+/-0.09(syst).

hep-ex↗