1112.5438 (S. N. Gninenko)

Stringent limits on the π^0 -> γX, X -> e+e- decay from neutrino
experiments and constraints on new light gauge bosons    [PDF]

S. N. Gninenko

We report new experimental limits on the \pi^0 -> \gamma X decay of the neutral pion into a photon and a light boson X followed by the decay X -> e+e-. If this process exist, one would expect a flux of high energy X's produced from \pi^0's generated by the proton beam in a neutrino target. The X's would then penetrate the downstream shielding and be observed in a neutrino detector via their decays. Using bounds from the NOMAD and PS191 neutrino experiments at CERN that searched for an excess of e+e- pairs from heavy neutrino decays, stringent limits on the branching ratio as small as Br(\pi^0 -> \gamma X) < 10^{-15} are obtained. These limits are several orders of magnitude smaller than the previous experimental and cosmological bounds. The obtained results are used to constrain models, where the X interacts with quarks and leptons, or it is a new vector boson mixing with photons, that transmits interaction between our world and hidden sectors consisting of SU(3)_C x SU(2)_L x U(1)_Y singlet fields.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1112.5438