Belle II sensitivity to long-lived dark photons

TL;DR

This paper highlights Belle II's unique ability to detect long-lived dark photons through specific signatures, potentially exploring parameter spaces inaccessible to other experiments.

Contribution

It identifies Belle II's sensitivity to long-lived dark photons with visible decays, emphasizing its potential to probe unexplored parameter regions.

Findings

Belle II can probe large regions of dark photon parameter space.

Signature with muons or pions is background-free after selection.

Electron final states require further background suppression studies.

Abstract

In this letter we point out that the Belle II experiment has a unique sensitivity to visibly decaying long-lived dark photons. Concentrating on the signatures with a single high energy photon in association with a displaced pair of charged particles, we find that Belle II will be able to probe large regions of parameter space that cannot be covered by any other running or proposed experimental facility. While the signature with charged muons or pions in the final state is expected to be background-free after all selections are applied, the case of final state electrons is more involved and requires an in-depth study. We discuss possible ways to further suppress backgrounds and the corresponding experimental prospects.