2025/11/19 by Andrea Caputo, Jaeyoung Park, Caputo, Andrea +3 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2511.15785
We investigate cosmological and astrophysical constraints on dark photons with masses ∼ 10-1-103 MeV. These dark photons can be copiously produced either in the early universe or during core-collapse supernovae, potentially leaving distinct observational signatures. First, we derive updated constraints from cosmological and astrophysical observables that rely on the thermal relic abundance of dark photons, including the CMB spectrum, primordial light element abundances, and galactic/extragalactic gamma-ray flux. We consider the minimal reheating temperature possible, T\rm RH = 6 \rm MeV, such that our constraints are conservative, but unavoidable within the minimal dark photon model. Then, for supernova-sourced dark photons, we systematically examine all relevant observational bounds, revisit the standard cooling argument and derive limits from other arguments such as fireball formation, low energy supernovae and galactic positron injection.