Collar JI, Cooper PS, Lewis CM. Search for a Nonrelativistic Boson in Two-Body Antimuon Decay.
PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 2023;
131:241802. [PMID:
38181129 DOI:
10.1103/physrevlett.131.241802]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/15/2023] [Accepted: 11/17/2023] [Indexed: 01/07/2024]
Abstract
We demonstrate the feasibility of probing the charged lepton-flavor-violating decay μ^{+}→e^{+}X^{0} for the presence of a slow-moving neutral boson X^{0} capable of undergoing gravitational binding to large structures and, as such, able to participate in some cosmological scenarios. A short exposure to surface antimuons from beam line M20 at TRIUMF generates a branching ratio limit of ≲10^{-5}. This is comparable to or better than previous searches for this channel, although in a thus-far-unexplored region of X^{0} phase space very close to the kinematic limit of the decay, where m_{X^{0}} approaches m_{μ^{+}}. The future improved sensitivity of the method using a customized p-type point-contact germanium detector is described.
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