Search for sub-millicharged particles at J-PARC

Abstract

We studied the feasibility of an experiment searching for sub-millicharged particles ($χ$s) using 30 GeV proton fixed-target collisions at J-PARC. The detector is composed of two layers of stacked scintillator bars and PMTs and is proposed to be installed 280 m from the target. The main background is a random coincidence between two layers due to dark counts in PMTs, which can be reduced to a negligible level using the timing of the proton beam. With $N_\textrm{POT}=10^{22}$ which corresponds to running the experiment for three years, the experiment provides sensitivity to $χ$s with the charge down to $5\times10^{-5}$ in $m_χ<0.2$ $\textrm{GeV}/\textrm{c}^2$ and $8\times10^{-4}$ in $m_χ<1.6$ $\textrm{GeV}/\textrm{c}^2$. This is the regime largely uncovered by the previous experiments. We also explored a few detector designs to achieve an optimal sensitivity to $χ$s. The photoelectron yield is the main driver, but the sensitivity does not have a strong dependence on the detector configuration in the sub-millicharge regime.