Searches for dark matter with liquid xenon time projection chamber experiments have traditionally focused on the region of the parameter space that is characteristic of weakly interacting massive particles, ranging from a few GeV/$c^2$ to a few TeV/$c^2$. Models of dark matter with a mass much heavier than this are well motivated by early production mechanisms different from the standard thermal freeze-out, but they have generally been less explored experimentally. In this work, we present a re-analysis of the first science run (SR1) of the LZ experiment, with an exposure of $0.9$ tonne$\times$year, to search for ultraheavy particle dark matter. The signal topology consists of multiple energy deposits in the active region of the detector forming a straight line, from which the velocity of the incoming particle can be reconstructed on an event-by-event basis. Zero events with this topology were observed after applying the data selection calibrated on a simulated sample of signal-like events. New experimental constraints are derived, which rule out previously unexplored regions of the dark matter parameter space of spin-independent interactions beyond a mass of 10$^{17}$ GeV/$c^2$.
The process e+e- --> pi+ pi- pi0 gamma has been studied at a center-of-mass energy near the Y(4S) resonance using a 89.3 fb-1 data sample collected with the BaBar detector at the PEP-II collider. From the measured 3pi mass spectrum we have obtained the products of branching fractions for the omega and phi mesons, B(omega --> e+e-)B(omega --> 3pi)=(6.70 +/- 0.06 +/- 0.27)10-5 and B(phi --> e+e-)B(phi --> 3pi)=(4.30 +/- 0.08 +/- 0.21)10-5, and evaluated the e+e- --> pi+ pi- pi0 cross section for the e+e- center-of-mass energy range 1.05 to 3.00 GeV. About 900 e+e- --> J/psi gamma --> pi+ pi- pi0 gamma events have been selected and the branching fraction B(J/psi --> pi+ pi- pi0)=(2.18 +/- 0.19)% has been measured.
An inclusive search for long-lived exotic particles decaying to a pair of muons is presented. The search uses data collected by the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV in 2016 and 2018 and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 97.6 fb$^{-1}$. The experimental signature is a pair of oppositely charged muons originating from a common secondary vertex spatially separated from the pp interaction point by distances ranging from several hundred $\mu$m to several meters. The results are interpreted in the frameworks of the hidden Abelian Higgs model, in which the Higgs boson decays to a pair of long-lived dark photons Z$_\mathrm{D}$, and of a simplified model, in which long-lived particles are produced in decays of an exotic heavy neutral scalar boson. For the hidden Abelian Higgs model with $m_\mathrm{Z_D}$ greater than 20 GeV and less than half the mass of the Higgs boson, they provide the best limits to date on the branching fraction of the Higgs boson to dark photons for $c\tau$(Z$_\mathrm{D}$) (varying with $m_\mathrm{Z_D}$) between 0.03 and ${\approx}$ 0.5 mm, and above ${\approx}$ 0.5 m. Our results also yield the best constraints on long-lived particles with masses larger than 10 GeV produced in decays of an exotic scalar boson heavier than the Higgs boson and decaying to a pair of muons.
Measurements of neutral pion production at midrapidity in sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV Au+Au collisions as a function of transverse momentum, p_T, collision centrality, and angle with respect to reaction plane are presented. The data represent the final pi^0 results from the PHENIX experiment for the first RHIC Au+Au run at design center-of-mass-energy. They include additional data obtained using the PHENIX Level-2 trigger with more than a factor of three increase in statistics over previously published results for p_T > 6 GeV/c. We evaluate the suppression in the yield of high-p_T pi^0's relative to point-like scaling expectations using the nuclear modification factor R_AA. We present the p_T dependence of R_AA for nine bins in collision centrality. We separately integrate R_AA over larger p_T bins to show more precisely the centrality dependence of the high-p_T suppression. We then evaluate the dependence of the high-p_T suppression on the emission angle \Delta\phi of the pions with respect to event reaction plane for 7 bins in collision centrality. We show that the yields of high-p_T pi^0's vary strongly with \Delta\phi, consistent with prior measurements. We show that this variation persists in the most peripheral bin accessible in this analysis. For the peripheral bins we observe no suppression for neutral pions produced aligned with the reaction plane while the yield of pi^0's produced perpendicular to the reaction plane is suppressed by more than a factor of 2. We analyze the combined centrality and \Delta\phi dependence of the pi^0 suppression in different p_T bins using different possible descriptions of parton energy loss dependence on jet path-length averages to determine whether a single geometric picture can explain the observed suppression pattern.
The transversity distribution, which describes transversely polarized quarks in transversely polarized nucleons, is a fundamental component of the spin structure of the nucleon, and is only loosely constrained by global fits to existing semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering (SIDIS) data. In transversely polarized $p^\uparrow+p$ collisions it can be accessed using transverse polarization dependent fragmentation functions which give rise to azimuthal correlations between the polarization of the struck parton and the final state scalar mesons. This letter reports on spin dependent di-hadron correlations measured by the STAR experiment. The new dataset corresponds to 25 pb$^{-1}$ integrated luminosity of $p^\uparrow+p$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}=500$ GeV, an increase of more than a factor of ten compared to our previous measurement at $\sqrt{s}=200$ GeV. Non-zero asymmetries sensitive to transversity are observed at a $Q^2$ of several hundred GeV and are found to be consistent with the former measurement and a model calculation. %we observe consistent with the former measurement are observed.} We expect that these data will enable an extraction of transversity with comparable precision to current SIDIS datasets but at much higher momentum transfers where subleading effects are suppressed.
Charged hadrons in 0.15 < pt < 4 GeV/c associated with particles of pt^trig > 4 GeV/c are reconstructed in pp and Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN)=200 GeV. The associated multiplicity and pt magnitude sum are found to increase from pp to central Au+Au collisions. The associated pt distributions, while similar in shape on the near side, are significantly softened on the away side in central Au+Au relative to pp and not much harder than that of inclusive hadrons. The results, consistent with jet quenching, suggest that the away-side fragments approach equilibration with the medium traversed.
The PHENIX experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) has performed systematic measurements of phi meson production in the K+K- decay channel at midrapidity in p+p, d+Au, Cu+Cu and Au+Au collisions at sqrt(S_NN)=200 GeV. Results are presented on the phi invariant yield and the nuclear modification factor R_AA for Au+Au and Cu+Cu, and R_dA for d+Au collisions, studied as a function of transverse momentum (1<p_T<7 GeV/c) and centrality. In central and mid-central Au+Au collisions, the R_AA of phi exhibits a suppression relative to expectations from binary scaled p+p results. The amount of suppression is smaller than that of the neutral pion and the eta meson in the intermediate p_T range (2--5 GeV/c); whereas at higher p_T the phi, pi^0, and eta show similar suppression. The baryon (protons and anti-protons) excess observed in central Au+Au collisions at intermediate p_T is not observed for the phi meson despite the similar mass of the proton and the phi. This suggests that the excess is linked to the number of constituent quarks rather than the hadron mass. The difference gradually disappears with decreasing centrality and for peripheral collisions the R_AA values for both particles are consistent with binary scaling. Cu+Cu collisions show the same yield and suppression as Au+Au collisions for the same number of N_part. The R_dA of phi shows no evidence for cold nuclear effects within uncertainties.
We present first measurements of the pseudorapidity and azimuth $(\eta,\phi)$ bin-size dependence of event-wise mean transverse momentum $<p_{t} >$ fluctuations for Au-Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 200$ GeV. We invert that dependence to obtain $p_t$ autocorrelations on differences $(\eta_\Delta,\phi_\Delta)$ interpreted to represent velocity/temperature distributions on ($\eta,\phi$). The general form of the autocorrelations suggests that the basic correlation mechanism is parton fragmentation. The autocorrelations vary strongly with collision centrality, which suggests that fragmentation is strongly modified by a dissipative medium in the more central
We study the energy dependence of the transverse momentum (pT) spectra for charged pions, protons and anti-protons for Au+Au collisions at \sqrt{s_NN} = 62.4 and 200 GeV. Data are presented at mid-rapidity (|y| < 0.5) for 0.2 < pT < 12 GeV/c. In the intermediate pT region (2 < pT < 6 GeV/c), the nuclear modification factor is higher at 62.4 GeV than at 200 GeV, while at higher pT (pT >7 GeV/c) the modification is similar for both energies. The p/pi+ and pbar/pi- ratios for central collisions at \sqrt{s_NN} = 62.4 GeV peak at pT ~ 2 GeV/c. In the pT range where recombination is expected to dominate, the p/pi+ ratios at 62.4 GeV are larger than at 200 GeV, while the pbar/pi- ratios are smaller. For pT > 2 GeV/c, the pbar/pi- ratios at the two beam energies are independent of pT and centrality indicating that the dependence of the pbar/pi- ratio on pT does not change between 62.4 and 200 GeV. These findings challenge various models incorporating jet quenching and/or constituent quark coalescence.
The path-length dependent parton energy loss within the dense partonic medium created in lead-lead collisions at a nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}}$ = 5.02 TeV is studied by determining the azimuthal anisotropies for dijets with high transverse momentum. The data were collected by the CMS experiment in 2018 and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 1.69 nb$^{-1}$. For events containing back-to-back jets, correlations in relative azimuthal angle and pseudorapidity ($\eta$) between jets and hadrons, and between two hadrons, are constructed. The anisotropies are expressed as the Fourier expansion coefficients $v_n$, $n = $ 2-4 of these azimuthal distributions. The dijet $v_n$ values are extracted from long-range (1.5 $\lt$$\vert\Delta\eta\vert$$\lt$ 2.5) components of these correlations, which suppresses the background contributions from jet fragmentation processes. Positive dijet $v_2$ values are observed which increase from central to more peripheral events, while the $v_3$ and $v_4$ values are consistent with zero within experimental uncertainties.
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