Speaker
Description
The LHCb experiment searches the existence of dark photons ($A'$) as potential mediators between the Standard Model and a hypothesized dark sector, which is expected to interact feebly with Standard Model (SM) particles through kinetic mixing. Results from Run 1 and Run 2, focusing on prompt and displaced dark photon decays into muon pairs ($A'→\mu^+\mu^-$), have set world-leading exclusion limits on the dark photon mass and kinetic mixing parameter at 90% C.L., including the first-ever limit outside of beam dump experiments in a displaced phase space region. The focus of this talk is on future prospects on the dark photon search with the Upgraded LHCb detector in Run 3. This new detector and new trigger capabilities enabled also an extended search for electron final states ($A'→e^+e^-$) to probe dark photon masses below the dimuon threshold, benefiting from enhanced particle identification, larger datasets and optimized soft trigger thresholds. The ongoing efforts aim to explore previously inaccessible phase space parameter space, with promising preliminary results from electron-based analyses and low-mass resonance searches.