Search for photoproduction of axionlike particles at GlueX
S. Adhikari, C. S. Akondi, M. Albrecht, A. B. M. Shawkat Ali, M. J. Amaryan, A. Asaturyan, A. Austregesilo, Z. Baldwin, Fernando Barbosa, J. Barlow, E. Barriga, R. Barsotti, T. D. Beattie, В. В. Бердников, T. Black, W. Boeglin, W. J. Briscoe, T. Britton, W. K. Brooks, E. Chudakov, S. Cole, P. L. Cole, O. Cortes, V. Credé, M. M. Dalton, A. Deur, S. Dobbs, A. Dolgolenko, R. Dotel, M. Dugger, R. Dzhygadlo, D. Ebersole, H. Egiyan, T. Erbora, A. Ernst, P. Eugenio, C. Fanelli, S. Fegan, J. Fitches, A. M. Foda, S. Furletov, L. Gan, He Gao, A. Gasparian, C. Gleason, K. Goetzen, V. Goryachev, L. Guo, M. Hagen, H. Hakobyan, A. Hamdi, J. F. Castillo Hernandez, N. D. Hoffman, G. Y. Hou, G. M. Huber, A. Hurley, D. G. Ireland, M. M. Ito, I. Jaeglé, N. S. Jarvis, R. T. Jones, V. Kakoyan, G. Kalicy, M. Kamel, V. Khachatryan, M. Khatchatryan, C. Kourkoumelis, S. Kuleshov, A. LaDuke, I. Larin, David Lawrence, Daniel Lersch, H. Li, W. B. Li, B. Liu, K. Livingston, G. J. Lolos, L. Lorenti, K. Luckas, Valery E. Lyubovitskij, D. Mack, A. H. Mahmood, H. Marukyan, V. Matveev, M. McCaughan, M. McCracken, C. A. Meyer, R. Miskimen, R. E. Mitchell, K. Mizutani, V. Neelamana, F. Nerling, L. Ng, A. Ostrovidov, Z. Papandreou, C. Paudel, P. Pauli, R. Pedroni, L. Pentchev, Κ. Peters
Abstract
We present a search for axionlike particles, $a$, produced in photon-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of approximately 4 GeV, focusing on the scenario where the $a$-gluon coupling is dominant. The search uses $a\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\gamma}\ensuremath{\gamma}$ and $a\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{+}{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{\ensuremath{-}}{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{0}$ decays, and a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $168\text{ }\text{ }{\mathrm{pb}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ collected with the GlueX detector. The search for $a\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\gamma}\ensuremath{\gamma}$ decays is performed in the mass range of $180<{m}_{a}<480\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{MeV}$, while the search for $a\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{+}{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{\ensuremath{-}}{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{0}$ decays explores the $600<{m}_{a}<720\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{MeV}$ region. No evidence for a signal is found, and 90% confidence-level exclusion limits are placed on the $a$-gluon coupling strength. These constraints are the most stringent to date over much of the mass ranges considered.