- Open Access
Investigation of low-energy particle remnants in high-energy collisions at the LHC with a skipper-CCD detector
Phys. Rev. D 113, 032006 – Published 10 February, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/mm7w-6s2t
Abstract
We deployed the Mobile Skipper Testing Apparatus away from the Compact Muon Solenoid collision point, the first skipper-CCD detector probing low-energy particles produced in high-energy collisions at the Large Hadron Collider. In this work, we search for beam-related events using data collected in 2024 during beam-on and beam-off periods. The dataset corresponds to integrated luminosities of and for the proton-proton and Pb-Pb collision periods, respectively. We report observed event rates in a model-independent framework across two ionization regions: and . For the low-energy region, we perform a likelihood analysis to test the null hypothesis of no beam-correlated signal. We found no significant correlation during proton-proton and Pb-Pb collisions. For the high-energy region, we present the energy spectra for both collision periods and compare event rates for images with and without luminosity. We observe a slight increase in the event rate following the Pb-Pb collisions, coinciding with a rise in the single-electron rate, which will be investigated in future work. Using the low-energy proton-proton results, we place 95% confidence level constraints on the mass-millicharge parameter space of millicharged particles. Overall, the results in this work demonstrate the viability of skipper-CCD technology to explore new physics at high-energy colliders and motivate future searches with more massive detectors.
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
Article Text
References (35)
- J. Kopp, P. A. N. Machado, M. Maltoni, and T. Schwetz, J. High Energy Phys. 05 (2013) 050.
- S. Schramm, Symmetry 14, 1173 (2022).
- S. Biswas, E. Gabrielli, and B. Mele, Symmetry 14, 1522 (2022).
- B. Holdom, Phys. Lett. 166B, 196 (1986).
- J. Tiffenberg, M. Sofo-Haro, A. Drlica-Wagner, R. Essig, Y. Guardincerri, S. Holland, T. Volansky, and T.-T. Yu, Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 131802 (2017).
- L. Barak, I. M. Bloch, M. Cababie, G. Cancelo, L. Chaplinsky, F. Chierchie, M. Crisler, A. Drlica-Wagner, R. Essig, J. Estrada et al. (SENSEI Collaboration), Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 171802 (2020).
- L. Barak, I. M. Bloch, A. M. Botti, M. Cababie, G. Cancelo, B. A. Cervantes-Vergara, L. Chaplinsky, M. Crisler, A. Drlica-Wagner, R. Essig et al. (SENSEI Collaboration), Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 071801 (2024).
- A. A. Aguilar-Arevalo, J. C. D’Olivo, Y. Sarkis, N. Avalos, X. Bertou, P. Bellino, C. Bonifazi, A. Botti, G. Cancelo, J. Estrada et al. (CONNIE and Atucha-II Collaborations), Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 071801 (2025).
- S. Alcott, Z. Bhatti, J. Brooke, C. Campagnari, M. Carrigan, M. Citron, R. D. Santos, A. De Roeck, C. Dorofeev, T. Du et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 121802 (2025).
- M. Kalliokoski, V. A. Mitsou, M. de Montigny, A. Mukhopadhyay, P.-P. A. Ouimet, J. Pinfold, A. Shaa, and M. Staelens, J. High Energy Phys. 04 (2024) 137.
- R. Mammen Abraham, X. Ai, S. Alonso-Monsalve, J. Anders, C. Antel, A. Ariga, T. Ariga, J. Atkinson, F. U. Bernlochner, T. Boeckh, J. Boyd et al. (FASER Collaboration), arXiv:2503.19775.
- M. Citron, F. Golf, K. Gunthoti, A. Haas, C. S. Hill, D. Imani, S. Kelly, M. Liu, S. Lowette, A. De Roeck et al., arXiv:2504.12973.
- F. Kling, J.-L. Kuo, S. Trojanowski, and Y.-D. Tsai, Nucl. Phys. B987, 116103 (2023).
- B. A. Cervantes-Vergara, S. Perez, J. Estrada, A. Botti, C. R. Chavez, F. Chierchie, N. Saffold, A. Aguilar-Arevalo, F. Alcalde-Bessia et al., J. Instrum. 18, P08016 (2023).
- B. Cervantes-Vergara, S. Perez, J. D’Olivo, J. Estrada, D. Grimm, S. Holland, M. Sofo-Haro, and W. Wong, Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res., Sect. A 1046, 167681 (2023).
- A. Ball, J. Brooke, C. Campagnari, M. Carrigan, M. Citron, A. De Roeck, M. Ezeldine, B. Francis, M. Gastal, M. Ghimire et al., Phys. Rev. D 104, 032002 (2021).
- A. Ball, G. Beauregard, J. Brooke, C. Campagnari, M. Carrigan, M. Citron, J. De La Haye, A. De Roeck, Y. Elskens et al., Phys. Rev. D 102, 032002 (2020).
- S. Chatrchyan, G. Hmayakyan, V. Khachatryan, A. M. Sirunyan, W. Adam, T. Bauer, T. Bergauer, H. Bergauer, M. Dragicevic, J. Erö et al. (CMS Collaboration), J. Instrum. 3, S08004 (2008).
- P. Adari, I. M. Bloch, A. M. Botti, M. Cababie, G. Cancelo, B. A. Cervantes-Vergara, M. Crisler, M. Daal, A. Desai, A. Drlica-Wagner et al. (SENSEI Collaboration), Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 011804 (2025).
- G. I. Cancelo, C. Chavez, F. Chierchie, J. Estrada, G. Fernandez-Moroni, E. E. Paolini, M. S. Haro, A. Soto, L. Stefanazzi, J. Tiffenberg et al., J. Astron. Telesc. Instrum. Syst. 7, 015001 (2021).
- A. J. Rádl, Proc. Sci. LHCP2023 (2024) 283 [arXiv:2401.10763].
- G. Cowan, K. Cranmer, E. Gross, and O. Vitells, Eur. Phys. J. C 71, 1554 (2011).
- G. Beauregard, pythia mCP simulation, https://github.com/GBeauregard/milliqan-pyth-sim (2018).
- R. Essig, R. Plestid, and A. Singal, Commun. Phys. 7, 416 (2024).
- K. Ramanathan and N. Kurinsky, Phys. Rev. D 102, 063026 (2020).
- S. Perez, D. Rodrigues, J. Estrada, R. Harnik, Z. Liu, B. A. Cervantes-Vergara, J. C. D’Olivo, R. D. Plestid, J. Tiffenberg, T.-T. Yu et al., J. High Energy Phys. 02 (2024) 072.
- A. A. Prinz, R. Baggs, J. Ballam, S. Ecklund, C. Fertig, J. A. Jaros, K. Kase, A. Kulikov, W. G. J. Langeveld, R. Leonard et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 1175 (1998).
- R. Acciarri, C. Adams, J. Asaadi, B. Baller, T. Bolton, C. Bromberg, F. Cavanna, D. Edmunds, R. S. Fitzpatrick, B. Fleming et al. (ArgoNeuT Collaboration), Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 131801 (2020).
- S. Davidson, S. Hannestad, and G. Raffelt, J. High Energy Phys. 05 (2000) 003.
- G. Magill, R. Plestid, M. Pospelov, and Y.-D. Tsai, Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 071801 (2019).
- F. Chierchie, C. Chavez, M. Sofo Haro, G. Fernandez Moroni, B. Cervantes-Vergara, S. Perez, J. Estrada, J. Tiffenberg, S. Uemura, and A. Botti, J. Instrum. 18, P01040 (2023).
- A. Aguilar-Arevalo, I. Arnquist, N. Avalos, L. Barak, D. Baxter, X. Bertou, I. M. Bloch, A. M. Botti, M. Cababie, G. Cancelo et al. (DAMIC, DAMIC-M and SENSEI Collaborations), Phys. Rev. D 109, 062007 (2024).
- I. Arnquist, N. Avalos, D. Baxter, X. Bertou, N. Castelló-Mor, A. E. Chavarria, J. Cuevas-Zepeda, J. C. Gutiérrez, J. Duarte-Campderros, A. Dastgheibi-Fard et al. (DAMIC-M Collaboration), Phys. Rev. Lett. 130, 171003 (2023).
- A. A. Aguilar-Arevalo, N. Avalos, X. Bertou, C. Bonifazi, G. Cancelo, B. A. Cervantes-Vergara, C. Chavez, F. Chierchie, G. Coelho Corrêa, J. C. D’Olivo et al., arXiv:2403.15976.
- E. Depaoli, D. Rodrigues, I. Sidelnik, P. Bellino, A. Botti, D. Delgado, M. Cababié, F. Chierchie, J. Estrada, G. F. Moroni, S. Perez, and J. Tiffenberg, J. High Energy Phys. 10 (2024) 155.