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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Search for pseudoscalar bosons decaying into e+e− pairs in the NA64 experiment at the CERN SPS

Yu. M. Andreev6, D. Banerjee4, J. Bernhard4, V. E. Burtsev2, N. Charitonidis4, A. G. Chumakov12,13, D. Cooke5, P. Crivelli15, E. Depero15 et al. (The NA64 Collaboration)

E. Depero15, A. V. Dermenev6, S. V. Donskov10, R. R. Dusaev12, T. Enik2, A. Feshchenko2, V. N. Frolov2, A. Gardikiotis9, S. G. Gerassimov3,7, S. N. Gninenko6, M. Hösgen1, M. Jeckel4, V. A. Kachanov10, A. E. Karneyeu6, G. Kekelidze2, B. Ketzer1, D. V. Kirpichnikov6, M. M. Kirsanov6, V. N. Kolosov10, I. V. Konorov3,7, S. G. Kovalenko11,16, V. A. Kramarenko2,8, L. V. Kravchuk6, N. V. Krasnikov2,6, S. V. Kuleshov11,16, V. E. Lyubovitskij12,13,14,16, V. Lysan2, V. A. Matveev2, Yu. V. Mikhailov10, L. Molina Bueno15,17, D. V. Peshekhonov2, V. A. Polyakov10, B. Radics15, R. Rojas14, A. Rubbia15, V. D. Samoylenko10, H. Sieber15, D. Shchukin7, V. O. Tikhomirov7, I. Tlisova6, A. N. Toropin6, A. Yu. Trifonov12,13, B. I. Vasilishin12, G. Vasquez Arenas14, P. V. Volkov2,8, V. Yu. Volkov8, and P. Ulloa11 (The NA64 Collaboration)

  • 1Universität Bonn, Helmholtz-Institut für Strahlen-und Kernphysik, 53115 Bonn, Germany
  • 2Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, 141980 Dubna, Russia
  • 3Technische Universität München, Physik Department, 85748 Garching, Germany
  • 4CERN, European Organization for Nuclear Research, CH-1211 Geneva, Switzerland
  • 5UCL Departement of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, Gower St., London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom
  • 6Institute for Nuclear Research, 117312 Moscow, Russia
  • 7P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 119 991 Moscow, Russia
  • 8Skobeltsyn Institute of Nuclear Physics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, 119991 Moscow, Russia
  • 9Physics Department, University of Patras, 265 04 Patras, Greece
  • 10State Scientific Center of the Russian Federation Institute for High Energy Physics of National Research Center ‘Kurchatov Institute’ (IHEP), 142281 Protvino, Russia
  • 11Departamento de Ciencias Físicas, Universidad Andres Bello, Sazié 2212, Piso 7, Santiago, Chile
  • 12Tomsk Polytechnic University, 634050 Tomsk, Russia
  • 13Tomsk State Pedagogical University, 634061 Tomsk, Russia
  • 14Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Centro Científica y Tecnológica de Valparaíso-CCTVal, 2390123 Valparaíso, Chile
  • 15ETH Zürich, Institute for Particle Physics and Astrophysics, CH-8093 Zürich, Switzerland
  • 16Millennium Institute for Subatomic Physics at the High-Energy Frontier (SAPHIR) of ANID, Fernández Concha 700, Santiago, Chile
  • 17Instituto de Fisica Corpuscular (CSIC/UV), Carrer del Catedrtic Jos Beltrn Martinez, 2, 46980 Paterna, Valencia

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Phys. Rev. D 104, L111102 – Published 15 December, 2021

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.104.L111102

Abstract

We report the results of a search for a light pseudoscalar particle a that couples to electrons and decays to e+e− performed using the high-energy CERN SPS H4 electron beam. If such light pseudoscalar exists, it could explain the ATOMKI anomaly (an excess of e+e− pairs in the nuclear transitions of Be8 and He4 nuclei at the invariant mass ≃17  MeV observed by the experiment at the 5 MV Van de Graaff accelerator at ATOMKI, Hungary). We used the NA64 data collected in the “visible mode” configuration with a total statistics corresponding to 8.4×1010 electrons on target (EOT) in 2017 and 2018. In order to increase sensitivity to small coupling parameter ε we also used the data collected in 2016–2018 in the “invisible mode” configuration of NA64 with a total statistics corresponding to 2.84×1011 EOT. The background and efficiency estimates for these two configurations were retained from our previous analyses searching for light vector bosons and axionlike particles (ALP) (the latter were assumed to couple predominantly to γ). In this work we recalculate the signal yields, which are different due to different cross section and lifetime of a pseudoscalar particle a, and perform a new statistical analysis. As a result, the region of the two dimensional parameter space ma−ε in the mass range from 1 to 17.1 MeV is excluded. At the mass of the central value of the ATOMKI anomaly (the first result obtained on the beryllium nucleus, 16.7 MeV) the values of ε in the range 2.1×10−4<ε<3.2×10−4 are excluded.

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Phys. Rev. D 104, L111102– Published 15 December, 2021
  • Received 14 May 2021
  • Accepted 19 November 2021
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