An Apparatus to Search for Mirror Dark Matter

Gninenko, S.

doi:10.1142/s0217751x04020105

Cited by 22 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 44 publications

(78 reference statements)

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“…In both experiments, one of the main issues is that a high fraction of Ps at low temperatures should be available. Another interesting application would be the possibility to perform an experiment in order to confirm the interpretation of the recent DAMA-LIBRA annual modulation signal [22,23] as generated by mirror-type dark matter [24]. A step further would be to achieve Bose-Einstein condensation of Ps [25].…”

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confidence: 99%

Measurement of the orthopositronium confinement energy in mesoporous thin films

et al. 2010

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In this paper, we present measurements of the ortho-positronium (ortho-Ps) emission energy in vacuum from mesoporous films using the time-of-flight technique. We show evidence of quantum mechanical confinement in the mesopores that defines the minimal energy of the emitted Ps. Two samples with different effective pore sizes, measured with positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy, are compared for the data collected in the temperature range 50-400 K. The sample with smaller pore size exhibits a higher minimal energy (73 ± 5 meV), compared to the sample with bigger pores (48 ± 5 meV), due to the stronger confinement. The dependence of the emission energy with the temperature of the target is modeled as ortho-Ps being confined in rectangular boxes in thermodynamic equilibrium with the sample. We also measured that the yield of positronium emitted in vacuum is not affected by the temperature of the target.

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confidence: 99%

Measurement of the orthopositronium confinement energy in mesoporous thin films

et al. 2010

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“…For example, the neutron-mirror neutron mixing via a small mass term ǫ(nn ′ + n ′ n) proposed in [51], results in ordinary neutron anomalous disappearance, in addition to their decays or absorption due to SM interactions. At present, there are performed and proposed searches for mirror matter via the invisible decay of orthopositronium in vacuum [19,[52][53][54][55][56][57][58], through neutron-mirror neutron oscillations [51,59,60], and via Higgs-mirror Higgs mixing at LHC [61][62][63].…”

Section: Muonium Conversion In Mirror Matter Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Invisible decay of muonium: Tests of the standard model and searches for new physics

2013

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In the Standard Model there are several canonical examples of pure leptonic processes involving the muon, the electron and the corresponding neutrinos which are connected by the crossing symmetry: i) the decay of muon µ → eνµνe, ii) the inverse muon decay νµe → µνe, and iii) the annihilation of a muon and an electron into two neutrinos, µe → νµνe. Although the first two reactions have been observed and measured since long ago, the third process, resulting in the invisible final state, has never been experimentally tested. It may go either directly, or, at low energies, via the annihilation of a muon and an electron from an atomic bound state, called muonium (M = µ + e − ). The M → νeνµ decay is expected to be a very rare process, with the branching fraction predicted to be Br(M → νµνe) = 6.6 × 10 −12 with respect to the ordinary muon decay rate. Using the reported experimental results on precision measurements of the positive muon lifetime by the MuLan Collaboration, we set the first limit Br(M → invisible) < 5.7 × 10 −6 (90% C.L.), while still leaving a big gap of about six orders of magnitude between this bound and the predictions. To improve substantially the limit, we proposed to perform an experiment dedicated to the sensitive search for the M → invisible decay. A feasibility study of the experimental setup shows that the sensitivity of the search for this decay mode in branching fraction Br(M → invisible) at the level of 10 −12 could be achieved. If the proposed search results in a substantially higher branching fraction than predicted, say Br(M → invisible) ≃ 10 −10 , this would unambiguously indicate the presence of new physics. We point out that such a possibility may occur due the muonium transition into a hidden sector and consider, as an example, muonium-mirror muonium conversion in the mirror matter model. A result in agreement with the Standard Model prediction would be a theoretically clean check of the pure leptonic bound state annihilation through the charged current weak interactions, which place constraints for further attempts beyond the Standard Model. We believe our work gives strong motivations to perform the proposed experiment on search for the invisible decay of muonium in the near future.

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“…Oscillation between neutrinos and mirrorneutrinos could provide a candidate sterile neutrino in the form of mirror-neutrinos [19][20][21][22][23][24]. Similarly, mixing of photons and mirror-photons has also been proposed [25][26][27][28], and tested via positronium to mirror-positronium oscillation [29][30][31][32][33][34][35].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Search for Neutron to Mirror Neutron Oscillation Using Neutron Electric Dipole Moment Measurements

et al. 2022

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Baryon number violation is a key ingredient of baryogenesis. It has been hypothesized that there could also be a parity-conjugated copy of the standard model particles, called mirror particles. The existence of such a mirror universe has specific testable implications, especially in the domain of neutral particle oscillation, viz. the baryon number violating neutron to mirror-neutron (n−n′) oscillation. Consequently, there were many experiments that have searched for n−n′ oscillation, and imposed constraints upon the parameters that describe it. Recently, further analysis on some of these results have identified anomalies which could point to the detection of n−n′ oscillation. All the previous efforts searched for n−n′ oscillation by comparing the relative number of ultracold neutrons that survive after a period of storage for one or both of the two cases: (i) comparison of zero applied magnetic field to a non-zero applied magnetic field, and (ii) comparison where the orientation of the applied magnetic field was reversed. However, n−n′ oscillations also lead to variations in the precession frequency of polarized neutrons upon flipping the direction of the applied magnetic field. Precession frequencies are measured, very precisely, by experiments searching for the electric dipole moment. For the first time, we used the data from the latest search for the neutron electric dipole moment to constrain n−n′ oscillation. After compensating for the systematic effects that affect the ratio of precession frequencies of ultracold neutrons and cohabiting 199Hg-atoms, chief among which was due to their motion in non-uniform magnetic field, we constrained any further perturbations due to n−n′ oscillation. We thereby provide a lower limit on the n−n′ oscillation time constant of τnn′/|cos(β)|>5.7s,0.36T′<B′<1.01T′ (95% C.L.), where β is the angle between the applied magnetic field and the ambient mirror magnetic field. This constraint is the best available in the range of 0.36T′<B′<0.40T′.

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An Apparatus to Search for Mirror Dark Matter

Cited by 22 publications

References 44 publications

Measurement of the orthopositronium confinement energy in mesoporous thin films

Measurement of the orthopositronium confinement energy in mesoporous thin films

Invisible decay of muonium: Tests of the standard model and searches for new physics

A Search for Neutron to Mirror Neutron Oscillation Using Neutron Electric Dipole Moment Measurements

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