2013/05/13 by Javier Redondo, Georg Raffelt · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark matter #Kinetic energy #Limit (mathematics) #Mixing (physics) #Neutrino #Neutrino Physics Research #Photon #Solar core #Thermal #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1475-7516/2013/08/034
published as JCAP 1308 (2013) 034 · 17 pages, 4 figures
arxiv created 2013/05/13 · openalex publication_date 2013/08/19 · arxiv updated 2015/02/02 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
We re-examine solar emission of hidden photons γ' (mass m ) caused by kinetic γ–γ' mixing. We calculate the emission rate with thermal field theory methods and with a kinetic equation that includes γ–γ' ''flavor oscillations'' and γ absorption and emission by the thermal medium. In the resonant case both methods yield identical emission rates which, in the longitudinal channel, are enhanced by a factor ω P 2 / m 2 (plasma frequency ω P ) in agreement with An, Pospelov and Pradler (2013). The Sun must not emit more energy in a ``dark channel'' than allowed by solar neutrino measurements, i.e., not more than 10% of its photon luminosity. Together with the revised emission rate, this conservative requirement implies χ < 4 × 10 −12 (eV/ m ) for the kinetic mixing parameter. This is the most restrictive stellar limit below m ∼ 3eV, whereas for larger masses the transverse channel dominates together with limits from other stars. A recent analysis of XENON10 data marginally improves the solar limit, leaving open the opportunity to detect solar hidden photons with future large-scale dark matter experiments. Detecting low-mass hidden photons with the ALPS-II photon-regeneration experiment also remains possible.