Sensitivity of the FCC-ee to axion-like particles at different center-of-mass energies

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the FCC-ee collider's potential to detect axion-like particles through three-photon final states across various energies, focusing on electroweak couplings and mass ranges.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed sensitivity analysis of FCC-ee for ALPs with electroweak gauge boson couplings at multiple center-of-mass energies.

Findings

FCC-ee can detect ALPs with couplings as low as a few 10^{-6} GeV^{-1}.

Sensitivity varies across different energy runs, including Z pole and threshold energies.

The study highlights the potential to probe the electroweak structure of ALP couplings below the Z-boson mass.

Abstract

The sensitivity of the proposed FCC-ee collider to axion-like particles (ALPs) is investigated at all planned center-of-mass energies, with focus on the case where the ALP couples primarily to electroweak gauge bosons at leading order. We study the associated production of the ALP with a photon, with the ALP decaying in turn to two photons, yielding a three-photon final state. The ALP coupling to the photon is evaluated for ALP masses of 5 to 320 GeV. In this effective model, the FCC-ee will be able to detect ALPs for couplings down to a few $10^{-6} \mathrm{GeV}^{-1}$ ($10^{-5} \mathrm{GeV}^{-1}$) during the Z pole run (WW, ZH, and $t\bar{t}$ threshold runs). Additionally, this final state has the potential to probe the underlying electroweak structure of ALP couplings for ALP masses below the $Z$-boson mass.