Search for sub-millicharged particles at J-PARC

Understand

We studied the feasibility of an experiment searching for sub-millicharged particles ($\chi$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 $\chi$s with the charge down to $5\times10^{-5}$ in $m_\chi<0.2$ $\textrm{GeV}/\textrm{c}^2$ and $8\times10^{-4}$ in $m_\chi<1.6$ $\textrm{GeV}/\textrm{c}^2$.