The quirk signal at FASER and FASER 2

TL;DR

This paper investigates the detection prospects of quirks at FASER and FASER 2 by simulating their trajectories, energy losses, and event rates across various scenarios, enhancing understanding of their experimental signatures.

Contribution

It provides detailed simulations of quirk motions and energy losses through infrastructure, estimating detection sensitivities for different quirk models at FASER and FASER 2.

Findings

Estimated quirk event rates for FASER and FASER 2.

Identified optimal scenarios for quirk detection.

Analyzed effects of different quirk quantum numbers and masses.

Abstract

We study FASER and FASER 2 sensitivities to the quirk signal by simulating the motions of quirks that are travelling through several infrastructures from the ATLAS interaction point to the FASER (2) detector. The ionization energy losses for a charged quirk travelling in different materials are treated carefully. We calculate the expected numbers of quirk events that can reach the FASER (2) detector for an integrated luminosity of 150 (3000) fb$^{-1}$. Scenarios for quirks with four different quantum numbers, and different masses and confinement scales are studied.