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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Searching for axions with kaon decay at rest

Yohei Ema1,2,*, Zhen Liu2,†, and Ryan Plestid3,‡

  • 1William I. Fine Theoretical Physics Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA
  • 2School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA
  • 3Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA

  • *ema00001@umn.edu
  • †zliuphys@umn.edu
  • ‡rplestid@caltech.edu
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Phys. Rev. D 109, L031702 – Published 20 February, 2024

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.109.L031702

Abstract

We describe a novel search strategy for axions (or hadronically coupled axionlike particles) in the mass range of ma≲350  MeV. The search relies on kaon decay at rest, which produces a monoenergetic signal in a large volume detector (e.g., a tank of liquid scintillator) from axion decays a→γγ or a→e+e−. The decay modes K+→π+a and a→γγ are induced by the axion’s coupling to gluons, which is generic to any model which addresses the strong CP problem. We recast a recent search from MicroBooNE for e+e− pairs and study prospects at JSNS2 and other near-term facilities. We find that JSNS2 will have world-leading sensitivity to hadronically coupled axions in the mass range of 40  MeV≲ma≲350  MeV.

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Phys. Rev. D 109, L031702– Published 20 February, 2024
  • Received 21 September 2023
  • Accepted 22 January 2024
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