Revisiting the Dark Photon Explanation of the Muon Anomalous Magnetic Moment

Abstract

A massive $U(1{)}^{\prime }$ gauge boson known as a "dark photon" or $A^{\prime }$, has long been proposed as a potential explanation for the discrepancy observed between the experimental measurement and theoretical determination of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon, ($g_{\mu }-2$) anomaly. Recently, experimental results have excluded this possibility for a dark photon exhibiting exclusively visible or invisible decays. In this work, we revisit this idea and consider a model where $A^{\prime }$ couples inelastically to dark matter and an excited dark sector state, leading to a more exotic decay topology we refer to as a semi-visible decay. We show that for large mass splittings between the dark sector states this decay mode is enhanced, weakening the previous invisibly decaying dark photon bounds. As a consequence, $A^{\prime }$ resolves the $g_{\mu }-2$ anomaly in a region of parameter space the thermal dark matter component of the Universe is readily explained. Interestingly, it is possible that the semi-visible events we discuss may have been vetoed by experiments searching for invisible dark photon decays. A re-analysis of the data and future searches may be crucial in uncovering this exotic decay mode or closing the window on the dark photon explanation of the $g_{\mu }-2$ anomaly.

5 pages + references, 3 figures

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• Inelastic Dark Matter at the Fermilab Short Baseline Neutrino Program