Study of sub-GeV Dipolar Dark States at SND@LHC within Invisible Bounds on Meson Decays

TL;DR

This paper explores SND@LHC's potential to detect sub-GeV dipolar dark states via photon interactions, comparing its sensitivity with other experiments and analyzing the effective theory validity.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed sensitivity analysis of SND@LHC for dipolar dark states and compares it with existing experimental constraints.

Findings

SND@LHC can probe magnetic and electric dipole moments in the sub-GeV range.

Sensitivity plots show competitive reach compared to other experiments.

Effective theory validity is confirmed within conservative coupling bounds.

Abstract

Electromagnetic form factors constitute a natural portal for accessing states beyond the Standard Model. In particular, dimension-5 magnetic and electric dipole moment operators offer a minimal and predictive framework for Feebly Interacting Particles (FIPs). In this work, we perform a study of the sensitivity reach of the Scattering and Neutrino Detector (SND@LHC) in the detection of dipolar dark states through photon-mediated interactions with the Standard Model particles. The far-forward region of the LHC provides FIPs with large momenta that scatter off electrons and nuclei inside the target. Production of dark states from meson decays is constrained by invisible decay widths, while the Drell-Yan process offers a production channel in the GeV range. We present sensitivity plots for magnetic and electric dipole moment interactions at SND@LHC and compare them with constraints from direct detection, beam dump, fixed-target, and collider experiments. The validity of the effective theory that describes the dipole model is also studied by considering conservative bounds on the couplings.