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Search for the production of Higgs-portal scalar bosons in the NuMI beam using the MicroBooNE detector

P. Abratenko³⁸, D. Andrade Aldana¹⁴, L. Arellano²¹, J. Asaadi³⁷, A. Ashkenazi³⁶, S. Balasubramanian¹², B. Baller¹², A. Barnard²⁸, G. Barr²⁸ et al. (The MicroBooNE Collaboration^*)

G. Barr²⁸, D. Barrow²⁸, J. Barrow²⁵, V. Basque¹², J. Bateman ²¹, O. Benevides Rodrigues¹⁴, S. Berkman²⁴, A. Bhanderi²¹, A. Bhat⁷, M. Bhattacharya¹², M. Bishai³, A. Blake¹⁸, B. Bogart²³, T. Bolton¹⁷, M. B. Brunetti⁴⁰, L. Camilleri¹⁰, D. Caratelli⁴, F. Cavanna¹², G. Cerati¹², A. Chappell⁴⁰, Y. Chen³², J. M. Conrad²², M. Convery³², L. Cooper-Troendle²⁹, J. I. Crespo-Anadón⁶, R. Cross⁴⁰, M. Del Tutto¹², S. R. Dennis⁵, P. Detje⁵, R. Diurba², Z. Djurcic¹, K. Duffy²⁸, S. Dytman²⁹, B. Eberly³⁴, P. Englezos³¹, A. Ereditato^7,12, J. J. Evans²¹, C. Fang⁴, W. Foreman^14,19, B. T. Fleming⁷, D. Franco⁷, A. P. Furmanski²⁵, F. Gao⁴, D. Garcia-Gamez¹³, S. Gardiner¹², G. Ge¹⁰, S. Gollapinni¹⁹, E. Gramellini²¹, P. Green²⁸, H. Greenlee¹², L. Gu¹⁸, W. Gu³, R. Guenette²¹, P. Guzowski²¹, L. Hagaman⁷, M. D. Handley⁵, O. Hen²², C. Hilgenberg²⁵, G. A. Horton-Smith¹⁷, B. Irwin²⁵, M. S. Ismail²⁹, C. James¹², X. Ji²⁶, J. H. Jo³, R. A. Johnson⁸, Y.-J. Jwa¹⁰, D. Kalra¹⁰, G. Karagiorgi¹⁰, W. Ketchum¹², M. Kirby³, T. Kobilarcik¹², N. Lane²¹, J.-Y. Li¹¹, Y. Li³, K. Lin³¹, B. R. Littlejohn¹⁴, L. Liu¹², W. C. Louis¹⁹, X. Luo⁴, T. Mahmud¹⁸, C. Mariani³⁹, D. Marsden²¹, J. Marshall⁴⁰, N. Martinez¹⁷, D. A. Martinez Caicedo³³, S. Martynenko³, A. Mastbaum³¹, I. Mawby¹⁸, N. McConkey³⁰, L. Mellet²⁴, J. Mendez²⁰, J. Micallef^22,38, A. Mogan⁹, T. Mohayai¹⁶, M. Mooney⁹, A. F. Moor⁵, C. D. Moore¹², L. Mora Lepin²¹, M. M. Moudgalya²¹, S. Mulleriababu², D. Naples²⁹, A. Navrer-Agasson^15,21, N. Nayak³, M. Nebot-Guinot¹¹, C. Nguyen³¹, J. Nowak¹⁸, N. Oza¹⁰, O. Palamara¹², N. Pallat²⁵, V. Paolone²⁹, A. Papadopoulou¹, V. Papavassiliou²⁷, H. B. Parkinson¹¹, S. F. Pate²⁷, N. Patel¹⁸, Z. Pavlovic¹², E. Piasetzky³⁶, K. Pletcher²⁴, I. Pophale¹⁸, X. Qian³, J. L. Raaf¹², V. Radeka³, A. Rafique¹, M. Reggiani-Guzzo¹¹, L. Rochester³², J. Rodriguez Rondon³³, M. Rosenberg³⁸, M. Ross-Lonergan¹⁹, I. Safa¹⁰, D. W. Schmitz⁷, A. Schukraft¹², W. Seligman¹⁰, M. H. Shaevitz¹⁰, R. Sharankova¹², J. Shi⁵, E. L. Snider¹², M. Soderberg³⁵, S. Söldner-Rembold^15,21, J. Spitz²³, M. Stancari¹², J. St. John¹², T. Strauss¹², A. M. Szelc¹¹, N. Taniuchi⁵, K. Terao³², C. Thorpe²¹, D. Torbunov³, D. Totani⁴, M. Toups¹², A. Trettin²¹, Y.-T. Tsai³², J. Tyler¹⁷, M. A. Uchida⁵, T. Usher³², B. Viren³, J. Wang²⁶, M. Weber², H. Wei²⁰, A. J. White⁷, S. Wolbers¹², T. Wongjirad³⁸, M. Wospakrik¹², K. Wresilo⁵, W. Wu²⁹, E. Yandel^4,19, T. Yang¹², L. E. Yates¹², H. W. Yu³, G. P. Zeller¹², J. Zennamo¹², and C. Zhang³ (The MicroBooNE Collaboration^*)

¹Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Lemont, Illinois 60439, USA
²Universität Bern, Bern CH-3012, Switzerland
³Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, New York 11973, USA
⁴University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA
⁵University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0HE, United Kingdom
⁶Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT), Madrid E-28040, Spain
⁷University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA
⁸University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio 45221, USA
⁹Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523, USA
¹⁰Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA
¹¹University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3FD, United Kingdom
¹²Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, Illinois 60510, USA
¹³Universidad de Granada, Granada E-18071, Spain
¹⁴Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), Chicago, Illinois 60616, USA
¹⁵Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom
¹⁶Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405, USA
¹⁷Kansas State University (KSU), Manhattan, Kansas 66506, USA
¹⁸Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YW, United Kingdom
¹⁹Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA
²⁰Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803, USA
²¹The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom
²²Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA
²³University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA
²⁴Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824, USA
²⁵University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA
²⁶Nankai University, Nankai District, Tianjin 300071, China
²⁷New Mexico State University (NMSU), Las Cruces, New Mexico 88003, USA
²⁸University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3RH, United Kingdom
²⁹University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260, USA
³⁰Queen Mary University of London, London E1 4NS, United Kingdom
³¹Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, USA
³²SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA
³³South Dakota School of Mines and Technology (SDSMT), Rapid City, South Dakota 57701, USA
³⁴University of Southern Maine, Portland, Maine 04104, USA
³⁵Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York 13244, USA
³⁶Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel, 69978
³⁷University of Texas, Arlington, Texas 76019, USA
³⁸Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts 02155, USA
³⁹Center for Neutrino Physics, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061, USA
⁴⁰University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, United Kingdom

^*Contact author: microboone_info@fnal.gov

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 075007 – Published 6 April, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/6myb-c3g1

Abstract

We present the strongest experimental limits to date on the mixing angle, $θ$ , with which a new scalar particle, $S$ , mixes with the Higgs field in the mass range $110 MeV < m_{S} < 155 MeV$ . This result uses the MicroBooNE liquid argon time projection chamber to search for decays of these Higgs-portal scalar particles through the $S \to e^{+} e^{-}$ channel with the decays of kaons in the NuMI neutrino beam acting as the source of the scalar particles. The analysis uses an exposure of $2.01 \times 10^{21}$ protons on target of NuMI beam data including periods when the beam focusing system was configured to focus positively charged hadrons and separate periods when negatively charged hadrons were focused. The analysis searches for scalar particles produced from kaons decaying in flight in the beam’s decay volume and at rest in the target and absorber. At $m_{S} = 125 MeV$ ( $m_{S} = 150 MeV$ ) we set a limit of $θ < 3.19 \times 10^{- 4}$ ( $θ < 2.79 \times 10^{- 4}$ ) at the 95% confidence level.

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 075007– Published 6 April, 2026

Vol. 113, Iss. 7 — 1 April 2026

Received 11 February 2025
Accepted 18 March 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/6myb-c3g1

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP³.

Published by the American Physical Society

Physical Review D

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Search for the production of Higgs-portal scalar bosons in the NuMI beam using the MicroBooNE detector

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