Vector dark matter detection using the quantum jump of atoms

Haoran Di,Qiaoli Yang

doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2018.03.045

Haoran Di, Qiaoli Yang

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2018.03.045

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Abstract

The hidden sector U(1) vector bosons created from inflationary fluctuations can be a substantial fraction of dark matter if their mass is around 10−5 eV. The creation mechanism makes the vector bosons' energy spectral density ρcdm/ΔE very high. Therefore, the dark electric dipole transition rate in atoms is boosted if the energy gap between atomic states equals the mass of the vector bosons. By using the Zeeman effect, the energy gap between the 2S state and the 2P state in hydrogen atoms or hydrogen like ions can be tuned. The 2S state can be populated with electrons due to its relatively long life, which is about 1/7 s. When the energy gap between the semi-ground 2S state and the 2P state matches the mass of the cosmic vector bosons, induced transitions occur and the 2P state subsequently decays into the 1S state. The 2P→1S decay emitted Lyman-α photons can then be registered. The choices of target atoms depend on the experimental facilities and the mass ranges of the vector bosons. Because the mass of the vector boson is connected to the inflation scale, the proposed experiment may provide a probe to inflation.

Highlights

The existence of dark matter has been widely accepted due to the discovery of ample evidence such as the galactic rotational curves, the large scale structures, the gravitational lensings and the observations of the cosmic microwave background anisotropy etc. [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]
There are many theories that can provide a proper dark matter candidate and a large part of these dark matter candidates can be categorized into two classes: 1, axions/axion like particles (ALPs) [9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17, 29] created by the misalignment mechanism and massive vector dark bosons [20,21,22, 29] created from the misalignment mechanism or inflationary fluctuations; and 2, weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) such as the TeV scale supersymmetric particles [23] created from the thermal production in hot plasma
Experiments searching for axions/ALPs, vector dark bosons, or WIMPs are currently proceeding or in planning in laboratories around the world [24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41]

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The existence of dark matter has been widely accepted due to the discovery of ample evidence such as the galactic rotational curves, the large scale structures, the gravitational lensings and the observations of the cosmic microwave background anisotropy etc. [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. There are many theories that can provide a proper dark matter candidate and a large part of these dark matter candidates can be categorized into two classes: 1, axions/axion like particles (ALPs) [9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17, 29] created by the misalignment mechanism and massive vector dark bosons [20,21,22, 29] created from the misalignment mechanism or inflationary fluctuations; and 2, weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) such as the TeV scale supersymmetric particles [23] created from the thermal production in hot plasma. The axions/ALPs and the vector dark matter are bosons with a typically smaller mass (

VECTOR DARK MATTER

DESIGN OF THE EXPERIMENT

S1 2 2 P1 2

SENSITIVITY

CONCLUSIONS