Constraining dark photon parameters based on the very high energy observations of blazars

Abstract

Dark photon is a new gauge boson beyond the Standard Model as a kind of dark matter (DM) candidate. Dark photon dark matter (DPDM) interacts with electromagnetic fields via kinetic mixing, implicating an approach to give a constraint with extragalactic very high energy (VHE) sources. In this work, we attempt to constrain the kinetic mixing from the photon-dark photon scattering process in the host galaxy of blazar, the intergalactic medium and the Milky Way. The VHE photons from a blazar would pass through a dense DM spike around the supermassive black hole where the absorption from DPDM is dramatically enhanced. The kinetic mixing is constrained to be $\hat{I}\mu \sim 10^{-7}$ at a 95$\%$ confidence level with $m_{\mathrm{D}}\sim 0.03-1$ eV mass range from the observations of Markarian (Mrk) 421 and Mrk 501.

16 pages, 10 figures, 3 tables