PSILOGO

Laboratory for Particle Physics (LTP)


LTP Colloquium

Searching for Hidden Sector Physics with NA64

Thursday, November 5, 2020, 16:00
online only

Paolo Crivelli, ETHZ

Abstract:
NA64 is a fixed target experiment at the CERN SPS aiming at a sensitive search for hidden sectors. I will present the experiment and our latest results on the search for a new sub-GeV vector gauge boson (A') mediated dark matter (χ) production. The A', called dark photon, could be generated in the reaction e- Z → e- ZA' of 100 GeV electrons dumped against an active target which is followed by the prompt invisible decay A' → χ χ. The experimental signature of this process would be a clean event with an isolated electron and large missing energy in the detector. This allows us to set new limits on the γ-A' mixing strength and constrain some parameter space for the most interesting light dark matter models. Results on the search for the visible A' → e+e- decays, as well as X → e+e- decay of a new 17 MeV X boson, which could explain a recently observed anomaly in the 8Be transitions and a search for axion-like particles will be also discussed. I will conclude with the future prospects of the experiment which will resume data taking in 2021 after the CERN long shutdown.