Measurement of $\mathcal{B}(J/ψ\to η' e^+ e^- $) and search for a dark photon

Abstract

Using a data sample of $(1310.6\pm7.0)\times10^{6}$ $J/ψ$ decay events collected with the BESIII detector at BEPCII, we study the electromagnetic Dalitz decay $J/ψ\to η' e^+e^-$ with two dominant $η'$ decay modes, $η' \to γπ^+ π^-$ and $η' \to π^+π^-η$. The branching fraction is determined to be $\mathcal{B}(J/ψ\to η' e^+e^-) = (6.59\pm0.07\pm0.17) \times 10^{-5}$, which improves in precision by a factor of 2 over the previous BESIII measurement. A search for the dark photon ($γ'$) is performed via $J/ψ\toη' γ', γ' \to e^{+}e^{-}$. Excluding the $ω$ and $ϕ$ mass regions, no significant signal is observed in the mass range from 0.1 to 2.1 GeV/$c^{2}$. We set upper limits at the 90\% confidence level on $\mathcal{B}(J/ψ\to η' γ')\times\mathcal{B}(γ' \to e^+e^-)$, $\mathcal{B}(J/ψ\toη' γ'$) and the mixing strength as a function of dark photon mass. This is among the first searches for dark photons in charmonium decays.