Heating up the Galaxy with hidden photons

Sergei Dubovsky, Guzmán Hernández-Chifflet

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    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 10-20 eV.

    Original languageEnglish (US)
    Article number054
    JournalJournal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
    Volume2015
    Issue number12
    DOIs
    StatePublished - Dec 29 2015

    Keywords

    • dark matter theory
    • galaxy dynamics

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Astronomy and Astrophysics

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