2025/05/12 by A. W. Thomas, X. G. Wang, Thomas, A. W. +3 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Experiment (hep-ex) #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2505.07279
openalex publication_date 2025/05/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We proposed that parity-violating electron scattering (PVES) offers a powerful tool to probe the hypothetical dark photon. We calculated the dark photon contributions to PVES asymmetries in both elastic and deep-inelastic scattering (DIS). These contributions are characterised by the corrections to the standard model couplings C1q, C2q, and C3q. At low scales, the corrections to C1q and C3q could be as large as 5% were a dark photon to exist. In DIS at very high Q2, of relevance to HERA or the EIC, the dark photon could induce substantial corrections to C2q, suggesting as large as 10% uncertainties in the extraction of valence parton distribution functions. We also extracted the favoured regions of the dark photon parameter space by fitting the parity violation data and the CDF W boson mass, which prefer a heavy dark photon with mass above the Z-boson mass.