Searching for long-lived axionlike particles (ALPs) is a promising direction in collider experiments. In this paper, we explore the potential of the HL-LHC to probe a light long-lived ALP via its production associated with two jets within the photophobic ALP scenario. Specifically, we consider the process $pp\to jja$, where the ALP $a$ decays into a pair of displaced tau leptons, both of which decay hadronically via the 1-prong mode. We find that the prospective sensitivities of the HL-LHC with the center-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s}=14\mathrm{TeV}$ and integrated luminosity $\mathcal{L}=3{\mathrm{ab}}^{-1}$ can reach $g_{aWW}\in [8.92\times {10}^{-3},1.40\times {10}^{-1}]{\mathrm{TeV}}^{-1}$ for the ALP mass $m_a\in [4,10]\mathrm{GeV}$. Our results show that the HL-LHC has significant potential to probe long-lived ALPs via their displaced vertex signatures, complementing previous searches and opening access to some regions of parameter space that remain unexplored by the LHC and LEP.

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• Phenomenology
• Axion-like particles
• Monte Carlo methods