Prospects in the search for a new light <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:msup><mml:mrow><mml:mi>Z</mml:mi></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mo>′</mml:mo></mml:mrow></mml:msup></mml:mrow></mml:math> boson with the <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:mi>NA</mml:mi><mml:mrow><mml:mn>64</mml:mn><mml:mi>μ</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:mrow></mml:math> experiment at the CERN SPS
H. Sieber, D. Banerjee, P. Crivelli, E. Depero, S. Gninenko, D. Kirpichnikov, M. Kirsanov, V. Poliakov, L. Molina Bueno
Abstract
A light ${Z}^{\ensuremath{'}}$ vector boson coupled to the second and third lepton generations through the ${L}_{\ensuremath{\mu}}\ensuremath{-}{L}_{\ensuremath{\tau}}$ current with mass below 200 MeV provides a very viable explanation in terms of new physics to the recently confirmed $(g\ensuremath{-}2{)}_{\ensuremath{\mu}}$ anomaly. This boson can be produced in the bremsstrahlung reaction $\ensuremath{\mu}N\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\mu}N{Z}^{\ensuremath{'}}$ after a high energy muon beam collides with a target. $\mathrm{NA}64\ensuremath{\mu}$ is a fixed-target experiment using a 160 GeV muon beam from the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron accelerator looking for ${Z}^{\ensuremath{'}}$ production and its subsequent decays, ${Z}^{\ensuremath{'}}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\mathrm{invisible}$. In this paper, we present the study of the $\mathrm{NA}64\ensuremath{\mu}$ sensitivity to search for such a boson. This includes a realistic beam simulation, a detailed description of the detectors and a discussion about the main potential background sources. A pilot run is scheduled in order to validate the simulation results. If those are confirmed, $\mathrm{NA}64\ensuremath{\mu}$ will be able to explore all the remaining parameter space which could provide an explanation for the $g\ensuremath{-}2$ muon anomaly in the ${L}_{\ensuremath{\mu}}\ensuremath{-}{L}_{\ensuremath{\tau}}$ model.