Passage of millicharged particles in the electron beam-dump: refining constraints from SLACmQ and estimating sensitivity of NA64e

TL;DR

This paper refines constraints on millicharged particles by analyzing their attenuation in media, revises bounds from SLACmQ, and estimates NA64e's potential to explore new parameter space in the 10^{-4} eV to 1 GeV mass range.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of MCP attenuation effects, revises existing experimental bounds, and assesses NA64e's sensitivity to previously unexplored MCP parameter space.

Findings

Attenuation significantly affects MCP detection sensitivity.

Revised exclusion bounds for MCPs from SLACmQ data.

NA64e can probe new MCP mass and charge ranges.

Abstract

Millicharged particles (MCPs) arise in many well-motivated extensions of the Standard Model and are a popular subject for experimental searches. We investigate attenuation of the MCP flux produced at accelerator experiments due to their interactions in the media. Considering, as an example, the dedicated MCP search at SLACmQ, we demonstrate that this effect can significantly affect the final sensitivity to the MCP parameter space leaving its essential part still unexplored. Applying our analysis to the SLACmQ experiment [53], we correct their exclusion bounds in close accordance with Ref. [54]. We also show that this newly reopened area with the MCP masses in the range $10^{-4}$ eV - $1$ GeV and charges $\gtrsim 10^{-5} e$ can be effectively probed by the NA64$e$ experiment at the CERN SPS. Light MCPs are mostly produced by virtual photon in electron scattering off nucleus. The main source of heavy MCP is decays of vector mesons, produced by the electrons on nuclei.