Searching in the dark: the hunt for the dark photon

Abstract

The existence of Dark Matter (DM) is a well established fact since many decades, thanks to the observation of the effects of its gravitational interaction with the ordinary matter in the Universe. However, our knowledge of the Dark Matter features is still rather scarce. Indeed, one of the biggest quests in fundamental science today is the investigation of Dark Matter nature, from its origin to its composition, and the way its constituents interact with the ordinary matter, apart from gravity. Huge and ambitious efforts have been spent in the last years into its identification, concentrating especially on the search of viable Weakly Interacting Massive Particle candidates. However, no positive results have been achieved so far along this direction. On the other hand, many fascinating new ideas and models for its interpretation have been blooming: among them, an intriguing hypothesis is that the Dark Matter constituents could be neutral under Standard Model interactions, but they could interact through a new, still unknown, force under a "hidden" charge. This new hidden symmetry would be mediated by a massive gauge boson, the dark photon, which is expected to couple to the Standard Model via a kinetic mixing. The search for such a massive mediator has been pursued with large enthusiasm and dedication in the latest years, as its observation could be within the reach of many already existing experimental facilities, both based on accelerators

36 pages, 12 figures ~ Changes in new submission: Fig.12 caption, line 8: ref. [52] replaces [71] ~ Additional references suggested after proofs submission: about dark photon "thermal targets" and the definition of y: Izaguirre E. et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 115 (2015), 251301 - about inelastic dark matter models: R. Foot and S. Vagnozzi, Phys. Rev. D 91 (2015) 023512; JCAP 1607 (2016) 013

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• Constraints on the dark sector from electroweak precision observables
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• Dark photon - dark energy stationary axisymmetric black holes
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• Secondary beams at high-intensity electron accelerator facilities
• Search for invisible dark photon in $\gamma e$ scattering at future lepton colliders
• Multicomponent scalar dark matter at high-intensity proton beam experiments
• Relaxing constraints on a broad dark photon
• Dark boson mediation of the ${\pi }^0\to \gamma e^{+}{e}^{-}$ decay
• Influence of dark photon on magnetized and charged particle orbits around static spherically symmetric black hole
• Cross Section Calculations in Theories of Self-Interacting Dark Matter
• Searching for Dark Matter Particles with Compton Scattering Approach
• WIMP Dark Matter within the dark photon portal
• Application of Graph Neural Networks in Dark Photon Search with Visible Decays at Future Beam Dump Experiment
• Indirect detection of long-lived particles in a rich dark sector with a dark vector portal
• Constraints for rare electron-capture decays mimicking detection of dark-matter particles in nuclear transitions
• Dark Z-mediated dark matter with verifiable exotic scalars
• Can synchrotron radiation reveal the presence of {\it dark sector} around black hole?
• Relaxed constraints for dark matter with axial coupling to a dark photon
• Graph Reinforcement Learning for Exploring BSM Model Spaces
• Constraints on the $U(1{)}_{B-L}$ model from global QCD analysis
• Follow-up Search for a Tentative Dark Photon Signal Near 19.5 $\mu$eV using ORGAN-Q infrastructure
• Black hole dark monopole system
• Conformal anomaly transport induced by dark photon