An official website of the United States government
A<sc>bstract</sc> The presence of a plethora of light spin 0 and spin 1 fields is motivated in a number of BSM scenarios, such as the axiverse. The study of the interactions of such light bosonic fields with the Standard Model has focused mostly on interactions involving only one such field, such as the axion (ϕ) coupling to photons,$$\phi F\widetilde{F}$$, or the kinetic mixing between photon and the dark photon,FFD. In this work, we continue the exploration of interactions involving two light BSM fields and the standard model, focusing on the mixed axion-photon-dark-photon interaction$$\phi F{\widetilde{F}}_{D}$$. If either the axion or dark photon are dark matter, we show that this interaction leads to conversion of the CMB photons into a dark sector particle, leading to a distortion in the CMB spectrum. We present the details of these unique distortion signatures and the resulting constraints on the$$\phi F{\widetilde{F}}_{D}$$coupling. In particular, we find that for a wide range of masses, the constraints from these effect are stronger than on the more widely studied axion-photon coupling.
more »
« less
Millicharged relics reveal massless dark photons
A bstract The detection of massless kinetically-mixed dark photons is notoriously difficult, as the effect of this mixing can be removed by a field redefinition in vacuum. In this work, we study the prospect of detecting massless dark photons in the presence of a cosmic relic directly charged under this dark electromagnetism. Such millicharged particles, in the form of dark matter or dark radiation, generate an effective dark photon mass that drives photon-to-dark photon oscillations in the early universe. We also study the prospect for such models to alleviate existing cosmological constraints on massive dark photons, enlarging the motivation for direct tests of this parameter space using precision terrestrial probes.
more »
« less
- PAR ID:
- 10437888
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of High Energy Physics
- Volume:
- 2023
- Issue:
- 5
- ISSN:
- 1029-8479
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Dark matter particles may interact with other dark matter particles via a new force mediated by a dark photon, A′, which would be the dark-sector analog to the ordinary photon of electromagnetism. The dark photon can obtain a highly suppressed mixing-induced coupling to the electromagnetic current, providing a portal through which dark photons can interact with ordinary matter. This review focuses on A′ scenarios that are potentially accessible to accelerator-based experiments. We summarize the existing constraints placed by such experiments on dark photons, highlight what could be observed in the near future, and discuss the major experimental challenges that must be overcome to improve sensitivities.more » « less
-
Dark photons that are sufficiently light and/or weakly interacting represent a compelling vision of dark matter. Dark photon decay into three photons, which we call the dark photon trident, can be the dominant channel when the dark photon mass falls below the electron pair threshold and can produce a significant flux of x rays. We use 16 years of data from Interrnational Gamma-Ray Astro Physics Laboratory (INTEGRAL)/Spectrometer of INTEGRAL (SPI) to constrain sub-MeV dark photon decay, producing new worlds-best constraints on the kinetic mixing parameter for dark photon masses between 90 and 1022 keV, and comment on the potential for future x-ray observatories to discover the trident decay process.more » « less
-
null (Ed.)A bstract We present the supernova constraints on an axion-photon-dark photon coupling, which can be the leading coupling to dark sector models and can also lead to dramatic changes to axion cosmology. We show that the supernova bound on this coupling has two unusual features. One occurs because the scattering that leads to the trapping regime converts axions and dark photons into each other. Thus, if one of the two new particles is sufficiently massive, both production and scattering become suppressed and the bounds from bulk emission and trapped (area) emission both weaken exponentially and do not intersection The other unusual feature occurs because for light dark photons, longitudinal modes couple more weakly than transverse modes do. Since the longitudinal mode is more weakly coupled, it can still cause excessive cooling even if the transverse mode is trapped. Thus, the supernova constraints for massive dark photons look like two independent supernova bounds super-imposed on top of each other.more » « less
-
A<sc>bstract</sc> We introduce a mechanism by which a misaligned ALP can be dynamically converted into a dark photon in the presence of a background magnetic field. An abundance of non-relativistic ALPs will convert to dark photons with momentum of order the inhomogeneities in the background field; therefore a highly homogeneous field will produce non-relativistic dark photons without relying on any redshifting of their momenta. Taking hidden sector magnetic fields produced by a first order phase transition, the mechanism can reproduce the relic abundance of dark matter for a wide range of dark photon masses down to 10−13eV.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP05(2023)046
