2025/12/03 by Theresa M. Backes, Backes, Theresa M., Riccardo Catena +3
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Chemical and Physical Properties of Materials #Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO) #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #Random lasers and scattering media
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2512.03801
openalex publication_date 2025/12/03 · openalex created_date 2025/12/05 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Dark photons with masses in the 1-100 eV range can be produced in the Sun and subsequently absorbed in terrestrial detectors, offering a promising avenue for probing hidden-sector physics beyond the Standard Model. In this work, we develop a theoretically grounded strategy to identify optimal detector materials for solar dark photon absorption. Our strategy builds on a material-independent upper limit on the absorption rate, which we derive from Kramers-Kronig relations applied separately to the longitudinal and transverse dark photon modes. We show how the optimal material properties depend on the dark photon mass relative to the detector's plasma frequency, identifying the conditions under which a detector can saturate the theoretical upper limit. We then assess the performance of commonly used detector materials in light of these criteria and comment on the prospects of metamaterials featuring tunable plasma frequencies. Our results provide a general and model-independent framework to effectively guide the design of next-generation experiments targeting solar dark photons.