The improved results on a direct search for a new X(16.7 MeV) boson which could explain the anomalous excess of $e^+e^-$ pairs observed in the excited 8Be nucleus decays (Berillium anomaly) are reported. Due to its coupling to electrons, the X boson could be produced in the bremsstrahlung reaction e-Z -> e-ZX by a high-energy beam of electrons incident on active target in the NA64 experiment at the CERN SPS and observed through its subsequent decay into $e^+e^-$ pair. No evidence for such decays was found from the combined analysis of the data samples with total statistics corresponding to 8.4times 10^{10} electrons on target collected in 2017 and 2018. This allows to set the new limits on the $X$--$e^-$ coupling in the range 1.2 times 10^{-4} < epsilon_e < 6.8 times 10^{-4}, excluding part of the parameter space favored by the Berillium anomaly. We also set new bounds on the mixing strength of photons with dark photons (A) from non-observation of the decay $A to e^+e^-$ of the bremsstrahlung A with a mass below 24 MeV.
تحميل البحث