55 research outputs found
Probing New Physics with Underground Accelerators and Radioactive Sources
New light, weakly coupled particles can be efficiently produced at existing
and future high-intensity accelerators and radioactive sources in deep
underground laboratories. Once produced, these particles can scatter or decay
in large neutrino detectors (e.g Super-K and Borexino) housed in the same
facilities. We discuss the production of weakly coupled scalars via
nuclear de-excitation of an excited element into the ground state in two viable
concrete reactions: the decay of the excited state of O populated
via a reaction on fluorine and from radioactive Ce decay
where the scalar is produced in the de-excitation of Nd, which
occurs along the decay chain. Subsequent scattering on electrons,
, yields a mono-energetic signal that is observable in
neutrino detectors. We show that this proposed experimental set-up can cover
new territory for masses and couplings
to protons and electrons, . This parameter space
is motivated by explanations of the "proton charge radius puzzle", thus this
strategy adds a viable new physics component to the neutrino and nuclear
astrophysics programs at underground facilities.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure
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