The Heavy Photon Search experiment at Jefferson Laboratory

TL;DR

The Heavy Photon Search experiment at Jefferson Laboratory aims to detect a new gauge boson mediating dark-force interactions by searching for its decay into electron-positron pairs within a specific mass and coupling range using a specialized detector setup.

Contribution

This paper introduces the HPS experiment's design and methodology for detecting heavy photons via resonance and vertexing techniques at Jefferson Laboratory.

Findings

Designed a compact forward spectrometer with silicon microstrip detectors and PbWO4 calorimeter.

Established sensitivity to heavy photons with masses 20 MeV - 1 GeV and coupling constants 10^-5 to 10^-10.

Proposed a novel approach for dark-force mediator detection in fixed target experiments.

Abstract

The Heavy Photon Search experiment (HPS) at Jefferson Laboratory will search for a new $U(1)$ massive gauge boson, or "heavy-photon," mediator of a new fundamental interaction, called "dark-force," that couples to ordinary photons trough kinetic mixing. HPS has sensitivity in the mass range 20 MeV - 1 GeV and coupling $\varepsilon^2$ between 10$^{-5}$ and 10$^{-10}$. The HPS experiment will search for the $e^+e^-$ decay of the heavy photon, by resonance search and detached vertexing, in an electron beam fixed target experiment. HPS will use a compact forward spectrometer, which employs silicon microstrip detectors for vertexing and tracking, and a PbWO$_4$ electromagnetic calorimeter for energy measurement and fast triggering.