New Judicious Experiments for Dark sectors Investigations
New JEDI project general presentation
The Standard Model of Particle Physics describes pretty well ordinary matter but is not able to describe the dark side of the Universe and, despite all efforts, there is still no clear proof of dark matter particles existence. Last decades, an alternative approach to our current understanding of the Universe has been considered through a new theory, named the Dark Sectors theory.
Currently there is a lot of activity in both North America and Europe, evaluating various proposals, attempting to see how different experiments can better probe dark sectors. In all these discussions, the potential contribution of nuclear physics is largely ignored. The New JEDI project is a complete scientific program to study dark sectors through nuclear physics measurements at different European facilities.
The New JEDI project has very ambitious goals. Its main goal is to check, through tailor-made nuclear physics experiments, the EXISTENCE or NOT of a new particle (called boson) that will act as the messenger of a new fifth force.
The New JEDI project addresses the following key questions:
- What are the dark sectors of the Universe made of? Do dark forces exist?
- Can we produce and detect dark bosons in laboratory? What is the nature of such particles?
- Could nuclear physics make a systematic contribution to the studies of dark sectors?
Our investigation is further motivated by the recent claim of the anomaly observed in the e+e– decays of excited states of 8Be interpreted as the signature of a hypothetical dark boson. If we prove that it is indeed a real experimental signature of a new boson and not some spurious effect related either to an experimental error or a subtle effect of NP in such a complicated system as 8Be, it would open up an entire new field in Particle Physics Beyond the Standard Model. Should such a particle exist, it will manifest itself in many reactions with light nuclei. For that purpose, focus of this proposal is the study of simplest nuclear systems to reduce as much as possible nuclear structure uncertainties. Some of foreseen reactions may also shed additional light on the dynamics of few nucleon systems, relevant for the precision Big Bang Nucleosynthesis studies, and that constitutes the second scientific motivation of this project.
To realize this ambitious scientific program, a dedicated new detection setup has been designed, built up and coupled to a new generation digital data acquisition system, developed at GANIL.
The New JEDI experimental program will be carried out at ARAMIS-SCALP, ANDROMEDE, NPI tandetron and SPIRAL2 facilities. SPIRAL2 is an European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructure facility located in GANIL at Caen (France). It will deliver the most intense stable beams in Europe at an energy range from 0.75 to tens MeV. These four facilities will cover the full set of beams required for the project, keeping Europe at the heart of dark sectors studies.
The consortium of partner labs gathers worldwide-recognized experts in the different fields of experimental and theoretical Nuclear Physics, Dark Sectors theories and Big Bang Nucleosynthesis modelling, that should ensure the success of the new JEDI project and the quality of the incoming associated scientific results.
The New JEDI experimental data will validate state-of-the-art nuclear structure calculations and guide for further theoretical developments in dark sectors physics, as well as in physics beyond the standard model.