Related papers: Novel multi-lepton signatures of dark sectors in l…
We study rare three- and four-body kaon decays as a probe of light vector and axial-vector bosons coupled to non-conserved currents. We find that searches for $K_L \to \pi^0 \pi^0 (X\to e^+e^-)$ decays constrain the couplings of light $X$…
A new, strongly-coupled dark sector could be accessible to LHC searches now. These dark sectors consist of composites formed from constituents that are charged under the electroweak group and interact with the Higgs, but are neutral under…
Rare decays of $K$ and $B$ mesons provide a powerful probe of dark sectors with light new particles. We show that the pair production of $O(100\,{\rm MeV})$ dark states can be probed with the decays of $K_L$ mesons, owing to the enhanced…
We study the sensitivity of fixed target experiments to hadronically-coupled axion like particles (ALPs) produced in kaon decays, with a particular emphasis on current and upcoming short-baseline neutrino experiments. We demonstrate that…
The charged Kaon meson ($K^+$) features several hadronic decay modes, but the most relevant contribution to its decay width stems from the leptonic decay $K^+ \rightarrow \mu^+ \nu_\mu $. Given the precision acquired on the rare decay mode…
We present a testable mechanism of low-scale baryogenesis and dark matter production in which neither baryon nor lepton number are violated. Charged $D$ mesons are produced out-of-equilibrium at tens of MeV temperatures. The $D$ mesons…
Dark particles with lepton-flavor-violating couplings to the tau lepton can induce rare neutrinoless $\tau$ decays with large final state multiplicities. We study models where transitions of the type $\tau^\pm\to \ell^\pm\,\phi$, with…
Rare leptonic kaon and pion decays $K^+(\pi^+) \to \mu^+\, \nu_{\mu}\, e^+ e^-$ can be used to probe a dark photon of mass ${\cal O}(10)$~MeV, with the background coming from the mediation of a virtual photon. This is most relevant for the…
We describe a novel search strategy for axions (or hadronically coupled axion-like particles) in the mass range of $m_a \lesssim 350\,{\rm MeV}$. The search relies on kaon decay at rest, which produces a mono-energetic signal in a large…
Two-body decays like $K \to \pi a$ rank among the most constraining collider probes for new, low-mass, feebly interacting pseudoscalar particles $a$. We explore an alternative class of kaon decay modes, specifically three-body decays to…
Heavy QCD axions are well-motivated extensions of the QCD axion that address the quality problem while still solving the strong CP problem. Owing to the gluon coupling, critical for solving the strong CP problem, these axions can be…
The rare decays of a kaon into a pion and a charged lepton/antilepton pair proceed via a flavour changing neutral current and therefore may only be induced beyond tree level in the Standard Model. This natural suppression makes these decays…
We present a complete model of a dark QCD sector with light dark pions, broadly motivated by hidden naturalness arguments. The dark quarks couple to the Standard Model via irrelevant $Z$- and Higgs-portal operators, which encode the…
We explore the sensitivity of flavour changing b -> s transitions to a (sub-)GeV hidden sector with generic couplings to the Standard Model through the Higgs, vector and axion portals. The underlying two-body decays of B mesons, B -> X_s S…
Rare meson decays are among the most sensitive probes of both heavy and light new physics. Among them, new physics searches using kaons benefit from their small total decay widths and the availability of very large datasets. On the other…
Cosmologically long-lived, composite states arise as natural dark matter candidates in theories with a strongly interacting hidden sector at a scale of 10 - 100 TeV. Light axion-like states, with masses in the 1 MeV - 10 GeV range, are also…
The NA48/2 and NA62-$R_K$ experiments at the CERN SPS collected large samples of charged kaon decays in flight in 2003--07. The data analysis is still on-going (with over 20 publications produced so far); the recent results from these…
The rare decays of a kaon into a pion and a charged lepton/antilepton pair proceed via a flavour changing neutral current and therefore may only be induced beyond tree level in the Standard Model. This natural suppression makes these decays…
Nucleon decays into a lepton and two pseudoscalar mesons represent key channels for probing baryon number violation, complementing conventional two-body modes. In this Letter, we model-independently correlate two- and three-body processes…
In rich dark sector models, dark photons heavier than tens of MeV can behave as semi-visible particles: their decays contain both visible and invisible final states. We present models containing multiple dark fermions which allow for such…