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Search for a Dark Higgs Boson Produced in Association with Inelastic Dark Matter at the Belle II Experiment
Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 131801 – Published 22 September, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/37w5-glpp
Abstract
Inelastic dark matter models that have two dark matter particles and a massive dark photon can reproduce the observed relic dark matter density without violating cosmological limits. The mass splitting between the two dark matter particles and , with , is induced by a dark Higgs field and a corresponding dark Higgs boson . We present a search for dark matter in events with two vertices, at least one of which must be displaced from the interaction region, and missing energy. Using a data sample collected at Belle II, which operates at the SuperKEKB collider, we observe no evidence for a signal. We set upper limits on the product of the production cross section , and the product of branching fractions , where indicates , or , as functions of mass and lifetime at the level of . We set model-dependent upper limits on the dark Higgs mixing angle at the level of and on the dark photon kinetic mixing parameter at the level of . This is the first search for dark Higgs bosons in association with inelastic dark matter.
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References (69)
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