We present a search at Jefferson Laboratory for new forces mediated by sub-GeV vector bosons with weak coupling $\alpha'$ to electrons. Such a particle $A'$ can be produced in electron-nucleus fixed-target scattering and then decay to an $e^+e^-$ pair, producing a narrow resonance in the QED trident spectrum. Using APEX test run data, we searched in the mass range 175--250 MeV, found no evidence for an $A'\to e^+e^-$ reaction, and set an upper limit of $\alpha'/\alpha \simeq 10^{-6}$. Our findings demonstrate that fixed-target searches can explore a new, wide, and important range of masses and couplings for sub-GeV forces.
The binned invariant mass spectrum of e+e- pair events in the final event sample collected by APEX. The data correspond to Figure 3 of the paper, with the 0.05 MeV binning used for the profile likelihood analysis. The original plain-text file from <a href="https://doi.org/10.7484/inspirehep.data.lk95.m2gq">10.7484/inspirehep.data.lk95.m2gq</a> is accessible by clicking "Resources".