English

Improved Limits on Millicharged Particles Using the ArgoNeuT Experiment at Fermilab

High Energy Physics - Experiment 2020-08-14 v3 High Energy Physics - Phenomenology Instrumentation and Detectors

Abstract

A search for millicharged particles, a simple extension of the standard model, has been performed with the ArgoNeuT detector exposed to the Neutrinos at the Main Injector beam at Fermilab. The ArgoNeuT Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber detector enables a search for millicharged particles through the detection of visible electron recoils. We search for an event signature with two soft hits (MeV-scale energy depositions) aligned with the upstream target. For an exposure of the detector of 1.01.0 ×\times 102010^{20} protons on target, one candidate event has been observed, compatible with the expected background. This search is sensitive to millicharged particles with charges between 103e10^{-3}e and 101e10^{-1}e and with masses in the range from 0.10.1 GeV to 33 GeV. This measurement provides leading constraints on millicharged particles in this large unexplored parameter space region.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1911.07996,
  title  = {Improved Limits on Millicharged Particles Using the ArgoNeuT Experiment at Fermilab},
  author = {ArgoNeuT Collaboration and R. Acciarri and C. Adams and J. Asaadi and B. Baller and T. Bolton and C. Bromberg and F. Cavanna and D. Edmunds and R. S. Fitzpatrick and B. Fleming and R. Harnik and C. James and I. Lepetic and B. R. Littlejohn and Z. Liu and X. Luo and O. Palamara and G. Scanavini and M. Soderberg and J. Spitz and A. M. Szelc and W. Wu and T. Yang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1911.07996},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

Version accepted by PRL

R2 v1 2026-06-23T12:20:02.525Z