Search for Axionlike Particles Produced in e^{+}e^{-} Collisions at Belle II

Phys Rev Lett. 2020 Oct 16;125(16):161806. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.161806.

Abstract

We present a search for the direct production of a light pseudoscalar a decaying into two photons with the Belle II detector at the SuperKEKB collider. We search for the process e^{+}e^{-}→γa, a→γγ in the mass range 0.2<m_{a}<9.7 GeV/c^{2} using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of (445±3) pb^{-1}. Light pseudoscalars interacting predominantly with standard model gauge bosons (so-called axionlike particles or ALPs) are frequently postulated in extensions of the standard model. We find no evidence for ALPs and set 95% confidence level upper limits on the coupling strength g_{aγγ} of ALPs to photons at the level of 10^{-3} GeV^{-1}. The limits are the most restrictive to date for 0.2<m_{a}<1 GeV/c^{2}.