March 3, 2026Open Access

First displaced vertex search for electroproduced dark-sector strongly interacting massive particles by the HPS experiment

Key Points

No statistically significant signal for displaced vertex decays was found in the search for vector mesons.
The search focused on the invariant mass range of 39–179 MeV, ruling out detectable incidents against QED background.
Analysis of integrated luminosity of 10.608 nb−1 collected during the 2016 HPS engineering run was performed.
This may indicate challenges in detecting dark matter candidates, emphasizing the need for further studies.

Abstract

The Heavy Photon Search experiment (HPS) is a fixed-target, electron beam experiment designed to search for e + e − mass resonances and displaced decays using a forward acceptance spectrometer. This paper details the search for naturally long-lived “dark” vector mesons ( V D ) arising from a dark sector of beyond-Standard-Model strongly interacting massive particles, characterized by a QCD-like S U ( 3 ) D symmetry and coupled to the Standard Model photon via a new U ( 1 ) D gauge interaction mediated by the “heavy photon,” or A ′ . The results are based on an integrated luminosity of 10 608 nb − 1 collected during the 2016 HPS engineering run. The displaced vertex search for V D → e + e − in the e + e − invariant mass range 39–179 MeV showed no statistically significant evidence for signal above the QED background.

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Cite This Study

Anonymous et al. (Thu,) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/69a767c2badf0bb9e87e2338 https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1103/2k3q-9mhj

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