Dark photon and dark $Z$ mediated $B$ meson decays

Abstract

We study flavor changing neutral current decays of $B$ and $K$ mesons in the dark $U(1{)}_D$ model, with the dark photon/dark $Z$ mass between 10 MeV and 2 GeV. Although the model provides an improved fit (compared to the standard model) to the differential decay distributions of $B\to K^{(\ast )}{\ell }^{+}{\ell }^{-}$, with $\ell =\mu ,e$, and $B_s\to \varphi {\mu }^{+}{\mu }^{-}$, the allowed parameter space is ruled out by measurements of atomic parity violation, $K^{+}\to {\mu }^{+}+invisible$ decay, and $B_s-{\overline{B}}_s$ mixing, among others. To evade constraints from low energy data, we extend the model to allow for (1) additional invisible $Z_D$ decay, (2) a direct vector coupling of $Z_D$ to muons, and (3) a direct coupling of $Z_D$ to both muons and electrons, with the electron coupling fine-tuned to cancel the $Z_D$ coupling to electrons via mixing. We find that only the latter case survives all constraints.

Comments: 34 pages, 13 figures, 1 table. Updated with the LHCb results in 2212.09153. Version to appear in JHEP