Search for sub-millicharged particles at J-PARC

TL;DR

This study assesses the feasibility of detecting sub-millicharged particles at J-PARC using a specialized detector, demonstrating potential sensitivity to previously unexplored charge and mass ranges with minimal background interference.

Contribution

It proposes a novel experimental setup and evaluates its sensitivity to sub-millicharged particles, expanding the search into largely unexplored parameter space.

Findings

Sensitivity to charges as low as 5×10^{-5} for m_χ<0.2 GeV/c^2

Sensitivity to charges as low as 8×10^{-4} for m_χ<1.6 GeV/c^2

Detector design optimization shows minimal impact on sensitivity in the sub-millicharge regime

Abstract

We studied the feasibility of an experiment searching for sub-millicharged particles ($\chi$s) using 30 GeV proton fixed-target collisions at J-PARC. The detector is composed of two layers of stacked scintillator bars and PMTs and is proposed to be installed 280 m from the target. The main background is a random coincidence between two layers due to dark counts in PMTs, which can be reduced to a negligible level using the timing of the proton beam. With $N_\textrm{POT}=10^{22}$ which corresponds to running the experiment for three years, the experiment provides sensitivity to $\chi$s with the charge down to $5\times10^{-5}$ in $m_\chi<0.2$ $\textrm{GeV}/\textrm{c}^2$ and $8\times10^{-4}$ in $m_\chi<1.6$ $\textrm{GeV}/\textrm{c}^2$. This is the regime largely uncovered by the previous experiments. We also explored a few detector designs to achieve an optimal sensitivity to $\chi$s. The photoelectron yield is the main driver, but the sensitivity does not have a strong dependence on the detector configuration in the sub-millicharge regime.