Massive hidden photons as lukewarm dark matter

By M. Postma, J. Redondo. 2008

192 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We study the possibility that a keV-MeV mass hidden photon (HP), i.e. a hidden sector U(1) gauge boson, accounts for the observed amount of dark matter. We focus on the case where the HP interacts with the standard model sector only through kinetic mixing with the photon. The relic abundance is computed including all relevant plasma effects into the photon's self-energy, which leads to a resonant yield almost independent of the HP mass. The HP can decay into three photons. Moreover, if light enough it can be copiously produced in stars. Including bounds from cosmic photon backgrounds and stellar evolution, we find that the hidden photon can only give a subdominant contribution to the dark matter. This negative conclusion may be avoided if another production mechanism besides kinetic mixing is operative.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/da28c0f386b8dfc6b468997362582c3c3a4b3d39

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Citations in the corpus

Dark matter models and direct detection (2019, unknown): “Then there are constraints from late decays of dark photons into 3γ for mV < 2me [95] or from energy injection in the BBN or CMB for mV > 2me [96].”
Constraining light dark matter with diffuse X-ray and gamma-ray observations (2013, background): “This final constraint is valid for hidden photons below 2me ' 1 MeV, as these can decay to three photons and contribute to the diffuse photon background [34, 90].”
Exploring the Role of Axions and Other WISPs in the Dark Universe (2012, background): “Clearly, HB stars can also be exploited to bound the parameter space of hidden photons [56].”
Stellar cooling bounds on new light particles: plasma mixing effects (2016, background): “For example, the cosmological bounds on a light B − L vector, as shown in figure 4, are from the late-time decay of a small relic B − L abundance produced in the early universe, and at the masses indicated, this abundance is dominated by resonant production around electron-positron freeze-out [8].”
The Dawn of FIMP Dark Matter: A Review of Models and Constraints (2017, background): “If the dark photon is light, mA < 2me, as required by stability, then the DM abundance can be produced by the freeze-in mechanism through photon scattering with electrons and positrons or through electron-positron annihilation [332, 333].”
Dark photon dark matter produced by axion oscillations (2018, unknown): “[58] J.”
Dark light, dark matter, and the misalignment mechanism (2011, unknown): “φ→ l+l− Γ1 = χ2α M(2)+2m(2)l 2M2 √ M2 − 4m(2)l M > 2ml, Exact φ→ νν̄ Γ2 = χ 2α3 16π ( M MW )4√ M2 − 4m(2)ν Estimate of the loop process φ→ γγγ Γ3 = 17χ 2α4M 11664000π3 ( M me )8 See [4], valid for M < me The bounds imposed by these decays are plotted in Figure 2.”