SAIP2023

Exploring dark $Z_{d}$-boson at LHC

6 Jul 2023, 15:40

2h

University of Zululand

Poster Presentation Track B - Nuclear, Particle and Radiation Physics Poster Session 2

Speaker

Mr Karabo Mosala (University of the Witwatersrand, 1 Jan Smuts Avenue, Johannesburg, 2050, South Africa)

Description

Hidden sectors or dark sectors are hypothetical components appearing in various extensions to the Standard Model (SM), introduced to address phenomena not addressed by the SM (e.g the existence of dark matter or positron excess in the cosmic microwave background radiation flux). To incorporate the hidden sector, the introduction of an additional $U(1)_d$ dark gauge symmetry is necessary. This implies the presence of an extra gauge boson, often referred to as a dark photon or dark gauge boson $Z_d^\mu$. The dark photon could interact with both the hidden sector particles and the SM particles through a kinetic mixing term. The coupling between the dark photon and the SM can be explored at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) through proton-proton collisions. We probe various possible channels in the LHC environment and study the constraint on coupling(s) versus $m_{Z_d}$ at the centre of mass energy $\sqrt{s}= 13.6$~TeV with expected luminosity.

Level for award;(Hons, MSc, PhD, N/A)?

MSc