Heating up the Galaxy with hidden photons

Journal Article · Tue Dec 29 00:00:00 EST 2015 · Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516/2015/12/054· OSTI ID:22458418

Dubovsky, Sergei ^[1]; Hernández-Chifflet, Guzmán ^[1]

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1. Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics, Department of Physics, New York University,New York, NY, 10003 (United States)

We elaborate on the dynamics of ionized interstellar medium in the presence of hidden photon dark matter. Our main focus is the ultra-light regime, where the hidden photon mass is smaller than the plasma frequency in the Milky Way. We point out that as a result of the Galactic plasma shielding direct detection of ultra-light photons in this mass range is especially challenging. However, we demonstrate that ultra-light hidden photon dark matter provides a powerful heating source for the ionized interstellar medium. This results in a strong bound on the kinetic mixing between hidden and regular photons all the way down to the hidden photon masses of order 10{sup −20} eV.

• Sponsoring Organization: SCOAP3, CERN, Geneva (Switzerland)
• OSTI ID: 22458418
• Journal Information: Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 2015, Issue 12; Other Information: PUBLISHER-ID: JCAP12(2015)054; OAI: oai:repo.scoap3.org:13254; Article funded by SCOAP3. Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1475-7516
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
DETECTION
EV RANGE
HEATING
INTERSTELLAR SPACE
LANGMUIR FREQUENCY
MASS
MILKY WAY
NONLUMINOUS MATTER
PHOTONS
PLASMA
SHIELDING