Constraining dark photon parameters based on the very high energy observations of blazars

Tian-Ci Liu; Ming-Xuan Lu; Xiao-Song Hu

doi:10.1140/epjc/s10052-024-13092-y

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Particles and Fields

Open Access

Eur. Phys. J. C (2024) 84: 723
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-024-13092-y

Regular Article - Experimental Physics

Constraining dark photon parameters based on the very high energy observations of blazars

Tian-Ci Liu^a, Ming-Xuan Lu and Xiao-Song Hu

Guangxi Key Laboratory for Relativistic Astrophysics, School of Physical Science and Technology, Guangxi University, 530004, Nanning, China

^a ltc@st.gxu.edu.cn

Received: 31 January 2024
Accepted: 4 July 2024
Published online: 23 July 2024

Abstract

Dark photon is a new gauge boson beyond the Standard Model as a kind of dark matter (DM) candidate. Dark photon dark matter (DPDM) interacts with electromagnetic fields via kinetic mixing, implicating an approach to give a constraint with extragalactic very high energy (VHE) sources. In this work, we attempt to constrain the kinetic mixing from the photon-dark photon scattering process in the host galaxy of blazar, the intergalactic medium and the Milky Way. The VHE photons from a blazar would pass through a dense DM spike around the supermassive black hole where the absorption from DPDM is dramatically enhanced. The kinetic mixing is constrained to be $ϵ \sim 10^{- 7}$ $\epsilon \sim 10^{-7}$ at a 95 $%$ $\%$ confidence level with $m_{D} \sim 0.03 - 1$ $m_\textrm{D}\sim 0.03 {-} 1$ eV mass range from the observations of Markarian (Mrk) 421 and Mrk 501.

© The Author(s) 2024

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