Radio-frequency Dark Photon Dark Matter across the Sun

Abstract

Dark photon as an ultralight dark matter candidate can interact with the Standard Model particles via kinetic mixing. We propose to search for the ultralight dark photon dark matter using radio telescopes with solar observations. The dark photon dark matter can efficiently convert into photons in the outermost region of the solar atmosphere, the solar corona, where the plasma mass of photons is close to the dark photon rest mass. Due to the strong resonant conversion and benefiting from the short distance between the Sun and the Earth, the radio telescopes can lead the dark photon search sensitivity in the mass range of $4\times 10^{-8}-4\times 10^{-6}\mathrm{eV}$, corresponding to the frequency $10-1000\mathrm{MHz}$. As a promising example, the operating radio telescope LOFAR can reach the kinetic mixing $\epsilon \sim 10^{-13}$ ($10^{-14}$) within 1 (100) hour solar observations. The future experiment SKA phase 1 can reach $\epsilon \sim 10^{-16}-10^{-14}$ with $1$ hour solar observations.

12 pages, 2 figures, 1 table; v3: version matched to the journal

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Cited by in corpus (21)

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• Millicharged Relics Reveal Massless Dark Photons
• Signatures of Ultralight Bosons in Compact Binary Inspiral and Outspiral
• Explore the Axion Dark Matter through the Radio Signals from Magnetic White Dwarf Stars
• Constraints on dark matter annihilation from the Event Horizon Telescope Observations of M87${}^{\star }$
• Probing Stochastic Ultralight Dark Matter with Space-based Gravitational-Wave Interferometers
• In Situ Measurements of Dark Photon Dark Matter Using Parker Solar Probe: Going beyond the Radio Window
• Solar radio emissions and ultralight dark matter
• Listening for Dark Photon Radio from the Galactic Centre
• Shaping Dark Photon Spectral Distortions
• Probing ultra-light dark photon from inverse Compton-like scattering
• Scanning the landscape of axion dark matter detectors: applying gradient descent to experimental design
• Chiral Gravitational Wave Background from Audible Axion via Nieh-Yan Term
• Light-shinning-through-thin-wall radio frequency cavities for probing dark photon
• Particle Conversions Beyond the WKB Approximation and Solar-Induced Gravitational Waves from Dark Photon Dark Matter
• Low-frequency radio telescopes sensitivity to light dark matter
• The Dark Photon: a 2026 Perspective