Dark Photon Research Articles

Search for dark photons using a multilayer dielectric haloscope equipped with a single-photon avalanche diode

We report on the results of the search for dark photons with mass around 1.5$\,\rm eV/c^2$ using a multilayer dielectric haloscope equipped with an affordable and commercially available photosensor. The multilayer stack, which enables the conversion of dark photons (DP) to Standard Model photons, is made of 23 bilayers of alternating SiO$_2$ and Si$_3$N$_4$ thin films with linearly increasing thicknesses through the stack (a configuration known as a "chirped stack"). The thicknesses have been chosen according to an optimisation algorithm in order to maximise the DP-photon conversion in the energy region where the photosensor sensitivity peaks. This prototype experiment, baptised MuDHI (Multilayer Dielectric Haloscope Investigation) by the authors of this paper, has been designed, developed and run at the Astroparticle Laboratory of New York University Abu Dhabi, which marks the first time a dark matter experiment has been operated in the Middle East. No significant signal excess is observed, and the method of maximum log-likelihood is used to set exclusion limits at $90\%$ confidence level on the kinetic mixing coupling constant between dark photons and ordinary photons.

Constraints on Kerr-Newman black holes from merger-ringdown gravitational-wave observations

We construct a template to model the post-merger phase of a binary black hole coalescence in the presence of a remnant $U(1)$ charge. We include the quasi-normal modes typically dominant during a binary black hole coalescence, $(\ell,m,n) = \{(2,2,0), (2,2,1)\}$ and also present analytical fits for the quasinormal mode frequencies of a Kerr-Newman black hole in terms of its spin and charge, here also including the $(3,3,0)$ mode. Aside from astrophysical electric charge, our template can accommodate extensions of the Standard Model, such as a dark photon. Applying the model to LIGO-Virgo detections, we find that we are unable to distinguish between the charged and uncharged hypotheses from a purely post-merger analysis of the current events. However, restricting the mass and spin to values compatible with the analysis of the full signal, we obtain a 90th percentile bound $\bar{q} < 0.33$ on the black hole charge-to-mass ratio, for the most favorable case of GW150914. Under similar assumptions, by simulating a typical loud signal observed by the LIGO-Virgo network at its design sensitivity, we assess that this model can provide a robust measurement of the charge-to-mass ratio only for values $\bar{q} \gtrsim 0.5$; here we also assume that the mode amplitudes are similar to the uncharged case in creating our simulated signal. Lower values, down to $\bar{q} \sim 0.3$, could instead be detected when evaluating the consistency of the pre-merger and post-merger emission.

511 keV line constraints on feebly interacting particles from supernovae

Feebly interacting particles with masses with O(10-100) MeV can be copiously produced by core-collapse supernovae (SNe). In this paper we consider the case of MeV-ish sterile neutrinos and dark photons mixed with ordinary neutrinos and photons, respectively. Furthermore, both sterile neutrinos and dark photons may decay into positrons on their route to Earth. Such positrons would annihilate with electrons in the Galactic medium and contribute to the photon flux in the 511 keV line. Using the SPI (SPectrometer on INTEGRAL) observation of this line improves the bounds on the mixing parameters for these particles by several orders of magnitude below what is already excluded by the SN 1987A energy-loss argument.

Probing for an ultralight dark photon from inverse Compton-like scattering

The dark photon not only provides a portal linking dark sector particles and ordinary matter but also is a well-motivated dark matter candidate. We propose to detect the dark photon dark matter through the inverse Compton-like scattering process $p+{\ensuremath{\gamma}}^{\ensuremath{'}}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}p+\ensuremath{\gamma}$. Thanks to the ultrahigh energy primary cosmic rays, we find that such a method is able to probe the dark photon mass from ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}2}\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{eV}$ down to ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}19}\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{eV}$ with the expected sensitivity of eROSITA $X$-ray telescope, which can extend the current lower limit of dark photon mass from Jupiter's magnetic fields experiment by about three orders of magnitude.

Broadband Solenoidal Haloscope for Terahertz Axion Detection.

We introduce the Broadband Reflector Experiment for Axion Detection (BREAD) conceptual design and science program. This haloscope plans to search for bosonic dark matter across the [10^{-3},1] eV ([0.24, 240]THz) mass range. BREAD proposes a cylindrical metal barrel to convert dark matter into photons, which a novel parabolic reflector design focuses onto a photosensor. This unique geometry enables enclosure in standard cryostats and high-field solenoids, overcoming limitations of current dish antennas. A pilot 0.7 m^{2} barrel experiment planned at Fermilab is projected to surpass existing dark photon coupling constraints by over a decade with one-day runtime. Axion sensitivity requires <10^{-20} W/sqrt[Hz] sensor noise equivalent power with a 10T solenoid and 10 m^{2} barrel. We project BREAD sensitivity for various sensor technologies and discuss future prospects.

Dark photon bursts from compact binary systems and constraints

In this work, we consider the burst signal of the dark photon, the hypothetical vector boson of the $U(1)_B$ or $U(1)_{B-L}$ gauge group, generated by a compact binary star system. The absence of the signal in the laser interferometer puts bounds on the coupling constant $\epsilon$ to the ordinary matter. It turns out that if the dark photon is massless, $\epsilon^2$ is on the order of $10^{-37}-10^{-33}$ at most; in the massive case, the upper bound of $\epsilon^2$ is about $10^{-38}-10^{-31}$ in the mass range from $10^{-19}$ eV to $10^{-11}$ eV. These are the first bounds derived from the interferometer observations independent of the assumption of dark photons being dark matter.

Enhanced long-lived dark photon signals at lifetime frontier detectors

Long-lived particles that are present in many new physics models beyond the standard model, can be searched for in a number of newly proposed lifetime frontier experiments at the LHC. The signals of the long-lived dark photons can be significantly enhanced in a new dark photon model in which dark photons are copiously produced in the hidden radiation process. We investigate the capability of various lifetime frontier detectors in probing the parameter space of this model, including the far forward detectors FACET and FASER, the far transverse detector MATHUSLA, and the precision timing detector CMS-MTD. We find that the accessible parameter space is significantly enlarged by the hidden radiation process so that FACET, MATHUSLA, and CMS-MTD can probe a much larger parameter space than the so-called minimal model. The parameter space probed by FACET is found to be much larger than FASER, which is largely due to the fact that the former has a larger decay volume and is closer to the interaction point. There also exists some parameter space that can be probed both by the far detectors and by precision timing detectors, so that different experiments can be complementary to each other. A brief overview of the lifetime frontier detectors is also given.

Dark matter transient annihilations in the early Universe

The cosmological evolution can modify the dark matter (DM) properties in the early Universe to be vastly different from the properties today. Therefore, the relation between the relic abundance and the DM constraints today needs to be revisited. We propose novel \textit{transient} annihilations of DM which helps to alleviate the pressure from DM null detection results. As a concrete example, we consider the vector portal DM and focus on the mass evolution of the dark photon. When the Universe cools down, the gauge boson mass can increase monotonically and go across several important thresholds; opening new transient annihilation channels in the early Universe. Those channels are either forbidden or weakened at the late Universe which helps to evade the indirect searches. In particular, the transient resonant channel can survive direct detection (DD) without tuning the DM to be half of the dark photon mass and can be soon tested by future DD or collider experiments. A feature of the scenario is the existence of a light dark scalar.

A Study of Double Dark Photons Produced by Lepton Colliders using High Performance Computing

The universe is thought to be filled with not only Standard Model (SM) matters but also dark matters. Dark matter is thought to play a major role in its construction. However, the identity of dark matter is as yet unknown, with various search methods from astrophysical observartion to particle collider experiments. Because of the cross-section that is a thousand times smaller than SM particles, dark matter research requires a large amount of data processing. Therefore, optimization and parallelization in High Performance Computing is required. Dark matter in hypothetical hidden sector is though to be connected to dark photons which carries forces similar to photons in electromagnetism. In the recent analysis, it was studied using the decays of a dark photon at collider experiments. Based on this, we studies double dark photon decays at lepton colliders. The signal channels are e+e– → AʹAʹ and e+e– → AʹAʹγ where dark photon Aʹ decays dimuon. These signal channels are based on the theory that dark photons only decay into heavily charged leptons, which can explain the muon magnetic momentum anomaly. We scanned the cross-section according to the dark photon mass in experiments. MadGraph5 was used to generate events based on a simplified model. Additionally, to get the maximum expected number of events for the double dark photon channel, the detector efficiency for several center of mass (CM) energy were studied using Delphes and MadAnalysis5 for performance comparison. The results of this study will contribute to the search for double dark photon channels at lepton colliders.

Astrophysical information from the Rayleigh-Jeans Tail of the CMB

One of the explanations for the recent EDGES-LOW band 21 cm measurements of a strong absorption signal around 80 MHz is the presence of an excess radio background to the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). Such excess can be produced by the decay of unstable particles into small mass dark photons which have a non-zero mixing angle with electromagnetism. We use the EDGES-LOW band measurements to derive joint constraints on the properties of the early galaxies and the parameters of such a particle physics model for the excess radio background. A Bayesian analysis shows that a high star formation efficiency and X-ray emission of 4–7 × 1048 erg per solar mass in stars are required along with a suppression of star formation in halos with virial temperatures ≲ 2 × 104 K. The same analysis also suggests a 68 percent credible intervals for the mass of the decaying dark matter particles, it's lifetime, dark photon mass and the mixing angle of the dark and ordinary photon oscillation of [10-3.5, 10-2.4] eV, [101.1, 102.7] × 13.8 Gyr, [10-12.2, 10-10] eV and [10-7, 10-5.6] respectively. This implies an excess radio background which is ≈ 5.7 times stronger than the CMB around 80 MHz. This value is a factor ∼ 3 higher than the previous predictions which used a simplified model for the 21 cm signal.

LHC lifetime frontier and visible decay searches in composite asymmetric dark matter models

The LHC lifetime frontier will probe dark sector in near future, and the visible decay searches at fixed-target experiments have been exploring dark sector. Composite asymmetric dark matter with dark photon portal is a promising framework explaining the coincidence problem between dark matter and visible matter. Dark strong dynamics provides rich structure in the dark sector: the lightest dark nucleon is the dark matter, while strong annihilation into dark pions depletes the symmetric components of the dark matter. Dark photons alleviate cosmological problems. Meanwhile, dark photons make dark hadrons long-lived in terrestrial experiments. Moreover, the dark hadrons are produced through the very same dark photon. In this study, we discuss the visible decay searches for composite asymmetric dark matter models. For a few GeV dark nucleons, the LHC lifetime frontier, MATHUSLA and FASER, has a potential to discover their decay when kinetic mixing angle of dark photon is ϵ ≳ 10−4. On the other hand, fixed-target experiments, in particular SeaQuest, will have a great sensitivity to dark pions with a mass below GeV and with kinetic mixing ϵ ≳ 10−4 in addition to the LHC lifetime frontier. These projected sensitivities to dark hadrons in dark photon parameter space are comparable with the future sensitivities of dark photon searches, such as Belle-II and LHCb.

Probing invisible vector meson decays with the NA64 and LDMX experiments

Electron beam fixed target experiments such as NA64 and LDMX use missing energy-momentum to detect the production of dark matter and other long-lived states. The most studied production mechanism is dark Bremsstrahlung through a vector mediator. In this work, we explore a complementary source of missing energy-momentum signals: Bremsstrahlung photons can convert to hard vector mesons in exclusive photoproduction processes, which then decay to dark matter or other invisible particles, such as neutrinos. We find that existing NA64 data can improve the leading constraints on invisible light vector meson decays, while a future run of LDMX could improve them by up to 5 orders of magnitude. For the examples of a dark photon and a $U(1{)}_{B}$ gauge boson mediator, accounting for meson decays substantially enhances these experiments' sensitivity, especially to thermal relic dark matter of mass ${m}_{\ensuremath{\chi}}\ensuremath{\gtrsim}0.1\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{GeV}$.

High-precision search for dark photon dark matter with the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array

The nature of dark matter remains obscure in spite of decades of experimental efforts. The mass of dark matter candidates can span a wide range, and its coupling with the Standard Model sector remains uncertain. All these unknowns make the etection of dark matter extremely challenging. Ultralight dark matter, with $m \sim10^{-22}$ eV, is proposed to reconcile the disagreements between observations and predictions from simulations of small-scale structures in the cold dark matter paradigm, while remaining consistent with other observations. Because of its large de Broglie wavelength and large local occupation number within galaxies, ultralight dark matter behaves like a coherently oscillating background field with an oscillating frequency dependent on its mass. If the dark matter particle is a spin-1 dark photon, such as the $U(1)_B$ or $U(1)_{B-L}$ gauge boson, it can induce an external oscillating force and lead to displacements of test masses. Such an effect would be observable in the form of periodic variations in the arrival times of radio pulses from highly stable millisecond pulsars. In this study, we search for evidence of ultralight dark photon dark matter (DPDM) using 14-year high-precision observations of 26 pulsars collected with the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array. While no statistically significant signal is found, we place constraints on coupling constants for the $U(1)_B$ and $U(1)_{B-L}$ DPDM. Compared with other experiments, the limits on the dimensionless coupling constant $\epsilon$ achieved in our study are improved by up to two orders of magnitude when the dark photon mass is smaller than $3\times10^{-22}$~eV ($10^{-22}$~eV) for the $U(1)_{B}$ ($U(1)_{B-L}$) scenario.

Electric current on surface of a metal/superconductor in axion/hidden-photon background

We derive the electric current on surface of a normal metal or superconductor induced by the light bosonic dark matter, such as axion or hidden photon, by appropriately taking account of the boundary condition of the electric and magnetic field at the surface. We discuss detection possibility of such an electric current.

Constraints on the dark photon from deep inelastic scattering

We investigate constraints on the dark photon arising from an analysis of deep inelastic scattering (DIS) data. We perform extractions of parton distribution functions (PDFs) with and without a dark photon being present and allow the dark photon mixing parameter and mass to vary. We also include the effects of vector meson dominance to ensure the correct photo-production limit. By considering the variation of the total $\chi^2$ arising from such extractions we infer exclusion limits on the kinetic mixing parameter of the dark photon for dark photon mass up to $80\ {\rm GeV}$.

Dark photon dark matter from a rolling inflaton

We study in detail a recently proposed mechanism for producing non-thermal dark photon dark matter at the end of inflation in the mass range μ eV≲ m ≲ 10 TeV. A tachyonic instability induced by a rolling inflaton leads to the coherent production of dark (abelian) gauge bosons with a peak in the power spectrum corresponding to the Hubble scale at the end of inflation. As the Universe expands after inflation the dark photons redshift and, at some point in their cosmic evolution, they obtain a mass. We focus in particular on the case where the dark photons are relativistic at the time their mass is generated and examine the associated cosmic evolution to compute the relic abundance today. We also examine the late time power spectrum demonstrating explicitly that it preserves the peak generated at the end of inflation. We show that the peak corresponds to small physical scales today, ℓtoday∼ cm-100 km, with large density fluctuations at ℓtoday leading to a clumpy nature for the dark photon dark matter. We also discuss potential phenomenology and future directions, briefly commenting on the non-relativistic case.

Ultralight Dark Photon and Casimir Effect

We investigate the influence of a dark photon on the Casimir effect and calculate the corresponding leading contribution to the Casimir energy. For expected magnitudes of the photon - dark photon mixing parameter, the influence turns out to be negligible. The plasmon dispersion relation is also not noticeably modified by the presence of a dark photon.

Turn up the volume: listening to phase transitions in hot dark sectors

Stochastic gravitational wave (GW) backgrounds from first-order phase transitions are an exciting target for future GW observatories and may enable us to study dark sectors with very weak couplings to the Standard Model. In this work we show that such signals may be significantly enhanced for hot dark sectors with a temperature larger than the one of the SM thermal bath. The need to transfer the entropy from the dark sector to the SM after the phase transition can however lead to a substantial dilution of the GW signal. We study this dilution in detail, including the effect of number-changing processes in the dark sector (so-called cannibalism), and show that in large regions of parameter space a net enhancement remains. We apply our findings to a specific example of a dark sector containing a dark Higgs boson and a dark photon and find excellent detection prospects for LISA and the Einstein telescope.

Observation of electroweak production of two jets in association with an isolated photon and missing transverse momentum, and search for a Higgs boson decaying into invisible particles at 13\xa0text {TeV} with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents a measurement of the electroweak production of two jets in association with a Zgamma pair, with the Z boson decaying into two neutrinos. It also presents a search for invisible or partially invisible decays of a Higgs boson with a mass of 125 text {GeV} produced through vector-boson fusion with a photon in the final state. These results use data from LHC proton–proton collisions at sqrt{s} = 13 text {TeV} collected with the ATLAS detector and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 hbox {fb}^{-1}. The event signature, shared by all benchmark processes considered for the measurements and searches, is characterized by a significant amount of unbalanced transverse momentum and a photon in the final state, in addition to a pair of forward jets. Electroweak Zgamma production in association with two jets is observed in this final state with a significance of 5.2 (5.1 expected) standard deviations. The measured fiducial cross-section for this process is 1.31pm 0.29 fb. An observed (expected) upper limit of 0.37 (0.34^{+0.15}_{-0.10}) at 95% confidence level is set on the branching ratio of a 125 text {GeV} Higgs boson to invisible particles, assuming the Standard Model production cross-section. The signature is also interpreted in the context of decays of a Higgs boson into a photon and a dark photon. An observed (expected) 95% CL upper limit on the branching ratio for this decay is set at 0.018 (0.017^{+0.007}_{-0.005}), assuming the Standard Model production cross-section for a 125 text {GeV} Higgs boson.

Compton-like dark photon production in electron–nucleus collisions

The Compton-like production of massive dark photons is investigated in ultrarelativistic electron–ion collisions by considering the kinetic mixing between the dark photon and the standard model photon. The quasi-real photons in the heavy ion are described by the equivalent photon approximation, and the model is employed to calculate the integrated cross section and event rates as a function of the dark photon mass, m γ′, and mixing parameter, ɛ. Predictions are shown for electron–ion colliders (EICs) in the mass range 100 ⩽ m γ′ ⩽ 500 MeV. Numerical results are provided within the kinematic coverage of the planned machines: an EIC in China (EicC), a polarized EIC at Jefferson Lab (JLEIC), an EIC/USA (EIC), a large hadron electron collider (LHeC) and a future circular collider (FCC-eA). It complements existing search strategies for dark photons in the considered mass interval.