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

2016,a breakthrough anomaly was reported in the isoscalar magnetic dipole transition in 8Be 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.