- Accepted Paper
Search for light-mass fractionally charged particles in space with DAMPE the experiment
Phys. Rev. Lett. - Accepted 7 October, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/jrp2-wcgm
Phys. Rev. Lett. - Accepted 7 October, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/jrp2-wcgm
Free Fractionally Charged Particles (FCPs) are predicted by some theories beyond or extending to the standard model. FCPs have been widely searched for by underground and space-based experiments based on the assumption of heavy lepton-like particles. However, there is a paucity of research focusing on light-mass FCPs (LFCPs) in the sub-MeV mass range. In this work, we report a search for LFCPs in primary high-energy cosmic rays, based on observational data from the Dark Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE) satellite. This study utilizes ten years on-orbit data of DAMPE to search for LFCPs with mass in the range of to and a charge of . No LFCP candidate is observed. The upper flux limit of LFCPs with a mass of 0.5 MeV and a charge of is determined to be $\rm 5.0 \times 10^{-11}\,cm^{-2}sr^{-1}s^{-1}$ at the $\rm 90\%$ confidence level.
If the author has provided any supplemental materials with this article they will be available upon publication of the version of record.