{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/129814"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/129814","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Searching for new physics with Fermilab’s proton beam","abstract":"Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2025-10-20 without embargo terms","abstract_html":"Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled &#x27;Open Access&#x27;. The submission was exported from vireo on 2025-10-20 without embargo terms","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Forbes, Diana Michelle"],"institution":"University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Physics","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Kahn, Yonatan","Shelton, Jessie","Gollin, George","Witek, Helvi"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2025,"date_issued":"2025-05-19","date_published":"2025-05-19","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:05Z","subjects":["High Energy","Phenomenology"],"languages":["en","eng"],"rights":["2024 by Diana Forbes. All rights reserved"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://hdl.handle.net/2142/129814","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Kahn, Yonatan","Shelton, Jessie","Gollin, George","Witek, Helvi"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Forbes, Diana Michelle"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2025-05-19","2025-08"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Physics"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["High Energy","Phenomenology"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en","eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["2024 by Diana Forbes. All rights reserved"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://hdl.handle.net/2142/129814"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2025-10-20 without embargo terms","The student, Diana Forbes, accepted the attached license on 2025-05-06 at 15:03.","The student, Diana Forbes, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2025-05-06 at 15:15.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2025-05-19 at 13:23.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #22236 on 2025-10-20 at 16:57:02","In this thesis, I summarize my work on two projects that use Fermilab's proton beam to search for new physics. The first project was in response to the anomalous muon magnetic moment announcement in 2021~\\cite{Muong-2:2021ojo}. This project proposed that we can use the SpinQuest experiment \\cite{apyan2022darkquestdarksectorupgrade}, with no additional installations needed, to look for a muonphillic scalar particle $S$ whose coupling to muons could resolve the anomalous muon magnetic moment. In this setup, a ${\\sim}$100 GeV proton beam would travel through a thick target material to produce a muon beam through scattering off of the target nuclei. This muon beam would then traverse the last length of the target, estimated to be $\\sim 100$ cm of material, to radiatively produce hypothetical scalar particles that would promptly decay into a muon pair. Hence, the signature would be an event with a pair of muons that has an invariant mass equal to the mass of the scalar particle. We simulated events for a choice of $3\\times 10^{14}$ muons on target (MOT) with typical energies of $\\sim$ 20 GeV, and, with a $15\\%$ invariant mass resolution, this strategy can probe the entire parameter space for which $\\sim$ 200 MeV -- GeV scalar particles resolve the muon $g-2$ anomaly. Ultimately, we estimated that we would only need about 6 years of beam time to achieve a $3 \\sigma$ discovery sensitivity. For the second project, I collaborated with a group member named Rachel Nguyen to estimate the sensitivity of Fermilab's DUNE Near Detector site to detecting millicharged particles (MCPs) as well as heavy axion-like particles (ALPs). The majority of my work for this project focused on the MCP search. Regarding the MCP search, we utilized the setup of a proposed project named FerMINI \\cite{Kelly:2018brz} to look for a MCP would be generated from charged pion scattering- a production channel that has been so far overlooked. We would use the DUNE Near Detector complex at Fermilab, with the additional installation of scintillator arrays and photomultiplier tubes (PMTs), to detect MCPs through soft ionizations. Fermilab's proton beam would pass through a graphite target, producing charged pions that secondarily scatter in the target to produce a $\\chi \\bar{\\chi}$ pair from a virtual photon. The signature for detecting a MCP would be three soft ionizations through the scintillator arrays that are collinear with the beam line and target, detectable through the collection of photoelectrons by PMTs. Using the framework of chiral perturbation theory, we found a small region of parameter space, around $1.5 < m_\\chi < 2.8$ GeV, where the charged pion production channel dominates over previously-considered production mechanisms. Regarding the ALP search, we proposed a search strategy that would use the DUNE Near Detector complex and charged pions to detect heavy axion-like particles (ALPs) with low-energy couplings to gluons. Again, using the framework of chiral perturbation theory, we demonstrated regimes of parameter space where the charged pion production channel dominates over previously-considered production mechanisms for ALPs, thereby improving the sensitivity of DUNE to these new particles compared to previous studies."]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Searching for new physics with Fermilab’s proton beam"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Kahn, Yonatan","Shelton, Jessie","Gollin, George","Witek, Helvi"],"dc:creator":["Forbes, Diana Michelle"],"dc:date":["2025-05-19","2025-08"],"dc:description":["Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2025-10-20 without embargo terms","The student, Diana Forbes, accepted the attached license on 2025-05-06 at 15:03.","The student, Diana Forbes, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2025-05-06 at 15:15.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2025-05-19 at 13:23.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #22236 on 2025-10-20 at 16:57:02","In this thesis, I summarize my work on two projects that use Fermilab's proton beam to search for new physics. The first project was in response to the anomalous muon magnetic moment announcement in 2021~\\cite{Muong-2:2021ojo}. This project proposed that we can use the SpinQuest experiment \\cite{apyan2022darkquestdarksectorupgrade}, with no additional installations needed, to look for a muonphillic scalar particle $S$ whose coupling to muons could resolve the anomalous muon magnetic moment. In this setup, a ${\\sim}$100 GeV proton beam would travel through a thick target material to produce a muon beam through scattering off of the target nuclei. This muon beam would then traverse the last length of the target, estimated to be $\\sim 100$ cm of material, to radiatively produce hypothetical scalar particles that would promptly decay into a muon pair. Hence, the signature would be an event with a pair of muons that has an invariant mass equal to the mass of the scalar particle. We simulated events for a choice of $3\\times 10^{14}$ muons on target (MOT) with typical energies of $\\sim$ 20 GeV, and, with a $15\\%$ invariant mass resolution, this strategy can probe the entire parameter space for which $\\sim$ 200 MeV -- GeV scalar particles resolve the muon $g-2$ anomaly. Ultimately, we estimated that we would only need about 6 years of beam time to achieve a $3 \\sigma$ discovery sensitivity. For the second project, I collaborated with a group member named Rachel Nguyen to estimate the sensitivity of Fermilab's DUNE Near Detector site to detecting millicharged particles (MCPs) as well as heavy axion-like particles (ALPs). The majority of my work for this project focused on the MCP search. Regarding the MCP search, we utilized the setup of a proposed project named FerMINI \\cite{Kelly:2018brz} to look for a MCP would be generated from charged pion scattering- a production channel that has been so far overlooked. We would use the DUNE Near Detector complex at Fermilab, with the additional installation of scintillator arrays and photomultiplier tubes (PMTs), to detect MCPs through soft ionizations. Fermilab's proton beam would pass through a graphite target, producing charged pions that secondarily scatter in the target to produce a $\\chi \\bar{\\chi}$ pair from a virtual photon. The signature for detecting a MCP would be three soft ionizations through the scintillator arrays that are collinear with the beam line and target, detectable through the collection of photoelectrons by PMTs. Using the framework of chiral perturbation theory, we found a small region of parameter space, around $1.5 < m_\\chi < 2.8$ GeV, where the charged pion production channel dominates over previously-considered production mechanisms. Regarding the ALP search, we proposed a search strategy that would use the DUNE Near Detector complex and charged pions to detect heavy axion-like particles (ALPs) with low-energy couplings to gluons. Again, using the framework of chiral perturbation theory, we demonstrated regimes of parameter space where the charged pion production channel dominates over previously-considered production mechanisms for ALPs, thereby improving the sensitivity of DUNE to these new particles compared to previous studies."],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["https://hdl.handle.net/2142/129814"],"dc:language":["en","eng"],"dc:rights":["2024 by Diana Forbes. All rights reserved"],"dc:subject":["High Energy","Phenomenology"],"dc:title":["Searching for new physics with Fermilab’s proton beam"],"dc:type":["text"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Physics"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:05Z"}