Journal of High Energy Physics (May 2024)

The new physics case for beam-dump experiments with accelerated muon beams

  • Cari Cesarotti,
  • Rikab Gambhir

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP05(2024)283
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 2024, no. 5
pp. 1 – 38

Abstract

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Abstract As the field examines a future muon collider as a possible successor to the LHC, we must consider how to fully utilize not only the high-energy particle collisions, but also any lower-energy staging facilities necessary in the R&D process. An economical and efficient possibility is to use the accelerated muon beam from either the full experiment or from cooling and acceleration tests in beam-dump experiments. Beam-dump experiments are complementary to the main collider as they achieve sensitivity to very small couplings with minimal instrumentation. We demonstrate the utility of muon beam-dump experiments for new physics searches at energies from 10 GeV to 5 TeV. We find that, even at low energies like those accessible at staging or demonstrator facilities, it is possible to probe new regions of parameter space for a variety of generic BSM models, including muonphilic, leptophilic, L μ − L τ , and dark photon scenarios. Such experiments could therefore provide opportunities for discovery of new physics well before the completion of the full multi-TeV collider.

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