Dark photon search at the PHENIX experiment

The \textquotedblleft{}dark photon,\textquotedblright{} a beyond standard model $U(1)$ gauge boson weakly coupled to ordinary photons, is a popular focus of searches for new forces and dark matter at the GeV-scale. Its existence may explain the muon $(g-2)$ anomaly, as measured by the E821 experiment, as well as the excess of high-energy cosmic-ray positrons observed by PAMELA and AMS. The PHENIX experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider has performed a direct search for this dark photon candidate appearing within the light meson decays, $\pi^{0},\eta\rightarrow\gamma e^{+}e^{-}$. An upper limit in the coupling between ordinary photons and dark photons in the mass range of 30 to 90 MeV$/c^{2}$ was obtained. The analysis and results will be discussed in this talk.