Description
In popular beyond the standard models (BSMs) with sub-GeV vector bosons, the exotic vector boson can be long-lived for certain regions of the mass-coupling parameter space. At $e^+e^−$ colliders, these particles can be searched through displaced decays, where the particles travel a finite distance before decaying. In such searches, two main challenges are reconstructing these events in the low-energy regime and dealing with backgrounds coming from particles interacting with the detector material.
In this work, we study the sensitivity of the proposed Super Tau-Charm Facility (STCF) to such signals. As a benchmark scenario, we consider the 17 MeV protophobic boson (X17), proposed to explain the ATOMKI anomalies. We use the TrackEff framework to perform detector-level simulations of the STCF Main drift chamber, and evaluate displaced vertex sensitivities towards the protophobic boson. A likelihood-based method is used to estimate the signal significance and the 5 σ discovery reach.
This work is part of a broader effort to study light LLP searches at $e^+e^−$ colliders such as Belle II, BESIII and STCF, with a focus on backgrounds produced in detector materials, reconstruction efficiencies, and their impact on these searches.
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