The REDTOP experiment: Rare Eta Decays with a TPC for Optical Photons

The $\eta$ and $\eta'$ mesons are almost unique in the particle universe since they are
Goldstone boson and the dynamics of their decay are strongly constrained.
Because the eta has no charge, decays that violate conservation laws can occur
without interfering with a corresponding current. The integrated eta meson
samples collected in earlier experiments have been about ~$10^9$ events, dominated by the WASA at Cosy experiment,
limiting considerably the search for such rare decays. A new experiment,
REDTOP, is being proposed, either at the proton booster of Fermilab or at the PS at CERN, with the intent
of collecting more than $10^{13}$ eta/year ($10^{11}$ eta'/year) for studiyng of rare $\eta$ decays.
Such statistics are sufficient for investigating several symmetry violations,
and for searches of new particles beyond the Standard Model. Recent studies have indicated that REDTOP has vey good sensitivity to processes that couple to the Standard Model through three so-called portals: the vector, the scalar and the axion portal.
The physics program, the accelerator systems and the detector for REDTOP will be
discussed during the presentation.