Related papers: Pion decay constraints on exotic 17 MeV vector bos…
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 $X$…
The anomalies recently reported in lepton pair transitions of $^8$Be$^*$ and $^4$He nuclei may be attributed to the existence of a feebly interacting light vector boson $X17$. We study the effects of this hypothetical particle in the…
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…
Simple dynamics, few available decay channels, and extremely well controlled radiative and loop corrections, make pion and muon decays a sensitive means for testing the underlying symmetries, the universality of weak fermion couplings, as…
The 6.8$\sigma$ anomaly in excited 8Be nuclear decays via internal pair creation is fit well by a new particle interpretation. In a previous analysis, we showed that a 17 MeV protophobic gauge boson provides a particle physics explanation…
It has been commonly assumed that pseudoscalar contributions to the leptonic decay of charged mesons, like pions and kaons, is strongly constrained due to the helicity suppression present in the ratio $R_{l/l'} = \Gamma(P \rightarrow…
We report new experimental limits on the \pi^0 -> \gamma X decay of the neutral pion into a photon and a light boson X followed by the decay X -> e+e-. If this process exist, one would expect a flux of high energy X's produced from \pi^0's…
A next-generation rare pion decay experiment, PIONEER, is strongly motivated by several inconsistencies between Standard Model (SM) predictions and data pointing towards the potential violation of lepton flavor universality. It will probe…
We show that the X17 vector boson, introduced to explain the ^8 Be anomalous decay, could play a crucial role in the explanation of the muon's (electron's) anomalous magnetic moment and the muonic Lamb shift. We further constrain the…
We investigate the landscape of constraints on MeV-GeV scale, hidden U(1) forces with nonzero axial-vector couplings to Standard Model fermions. While the purely vector-coupled dark photon, which may arise from kinetic mixing, is a…
We study the decays $\pi^{+}\to l^{+}\nu_{l}$ in the presence of a background electromagnetic plane wave with circular polarization. We find that, in the presence of this background, the number of hadronic form factors required to describe…
We estimate the values of Yukawa couplings of a light pseudoscalar A with a mass of about 17 MeV, which would explain the $^8Be$ anomaly observed in the Atomki pair spectrometer experiment. The resulting couplings of A to up and down type…
The combination of simple dynamics, small number of available decay channels, and extremely well controlled radiative and loop corrections, make charged pion decays a sensitive means for testing the underlying symmetries and the…
We survey the phenomenological constraints on abelian gauge bosons having masses in the MeV to multi-GeV mass range (using precision electroweak measurements, neutrino-electron and neutrino-nucleon scattering, electron and muon anomalous…
We study the sensitivity of past and future stopped-pion experiments to light, invisible dark sector particles produced in exotic pion decays. We consider two-body decays involving sterile neutrinos, $\pi^+ \to \ell^+ N$, as well as…
We derive new constraints on light vectors coupled to Standard Model (SM) fermions, when the corresponding SM current is broken by the chiral anomaly. Cancellation of the anomaly by heavy fermions results, in the low-energy theory, in…
A search for an exotic decay of the Higgs boson to a Z boson and a light pseudoscalar particle (a), decaying to a pair of leptons and a pair of photons, respectively, is presented. The search is based on proton-proton collision data at a…
Secret coupling of neutrinos to a new light vector boson, $Z'$, with a mass smaller than 100 MeV is motivated within a myriad of scenarios which are designed to explain various anomalies in particle physics and cosmology. Due to the…
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…
Recent anomalies in nuclear transitions observed by the ATOMKI collaboration suggest the existence of a new boson with a mass of $\sim 17$ MeV. A theoretically consistent interpretation requires a framework that not only matches the…