Constraining dark photon properties with Asteroseismology

Abstract

ABSTRACT Dark photons are particles invoked in some extensions of the Standard Model that could account for at least part of the dark matter content of the Universe. It has been proposed that the production of dark photons in stellar interiors could happen at a rate that depends on both, the dark photon mass and its coupling to Standard Model particles (the kinetic mixing parameter χ). In this work, we aim at exploring the impact of dark photon productions in the stellar core of solar mass red giant branch (RGB) stars during late evolutionary phases. We demonstrate that near the so-called RGB bump, dark photons production may be an energy sink for the star sufficiently significative to modify the extension of the star convective zones. We show that Asteroseismology is able to detect such variations in the structure, allowing us to predict an upper limit of $\rm 900\ eV$ and 5 × 10−15 for the mass and kinetic mixing of the dark photons, respectively. We also demonstrate that additional constraints can be derived from the fact that dark photons increase the luminosity of the RGB tip over the current observational uncertainties. This work thus paves the way for an empirical approach to deepen the study of such dark matter particles.