Searching for the Dark Photon with PADME
The PADME Experiment at Laboratori Nationali di Frascati is designed to search for the Dark Photon, a hypothetical gauge boson responsible for the interaction between the visible and the hidden sector. PADME explores the process of annihilation of beam positrons with the electrons in a fixed target, employing the missing mass technique: in case the annihilation results in the associate production of one visible and one Dark photon, the first can be registered by the experiment's electromagnetic calorimeter and the Dark Photon mass can be reconstructed knowing the beam energy. This paper presents the analysis techniques that are being employed for the PADME data, as well as the background composition and rejection procedure.
Authors
- Giada Mancini
- M. Mancini (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3615-5560)
- S.A. Ivanov (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2442-7351)
- Mauro Raggi
- F. Ferrarotto (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5464-0378)
- Paola Gianotti
- Ivano Sarra
- Paolo Massarotti
- Emanuele Leonardi
- Simeon Ivanov
- Paolo Valente
- Elisa Di Meco
- Fabio Anulli
- Radoslav Simeonov
- Kalina Dimitrova
- Elisabetta Vilucchi
- Andre Frankenthal
- Katerina Kostova
- Chiara Arcangeletti
- Venelin Kozhuharov
- Fabio Bossi
- Tommaso Spadaro
- Mario Antonelli
- Marco Garattini
Publication Details
- Published
- 2026-02-15
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.22323/1.507.0063
- Primary Topic
- Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- European Commission
- Bulgarian National Science Fund
- Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare