Searching for internal pair creation anomalies and the X17 boson at LNL

2016, a breakthrough anomaly was reported in the isoscalar magnetic dipole transition in8Be via the Internal Pair Creation process. An unexpected angular distribution of the relative angle of the e+e− was measured at the Atomki Laboratory. This phenomenon was explained considering the assumption of an emission of a neutral boson, named X17, with a mass of 16.70±0.35(stat)±0.5(syst) MeV/c2 and Jπ =1+. This finding triggered a global campaign to search for the new boson claimed. In Italy, at the Legnaro National Laboratories, a novel scintillator detector array has been designed and built. The present work reports the status of the first in-beam experiments performed in 2023 and 2024.