Distortion of neutrino oscillations by dark photon dark matter

TL;DR

This paper investigates how a light dark photon dark matter candidate can distort neutrino oscillation patterns by altering lepton dispersion relations, leading to new constraints from existing neutrino experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel analysis of dark photon effects on neutrino oscillations and derives the most stringent limits on dark photon coupling for very low masses.

Findings

Dark photon oscillations modify neutrino flavor conversion probabilities.

Current neutrino data set new upper bounds on dark photon coupling below 10^{-11} eV.

Degeneracies with standard oscillation parameters relax existing constraints.

Abstract

A weakly coupled and light dark photon coupling to lepton charges $L_\mu-L_\tau$ is an intriguing dark matter candidate whose coherent oscillations alter the dispersion relations of leptons. We study how this effect modifies the dynamics of neutrino flavor conversions, focusing on long baseline and solar oscillations. We analyze data from the T2K, SNO, and Super-Kamiokande experiments in order to obtain world-leading limits on the dark photon gauge coupling for masses below $\sim 10^{-11}\,\mathrm{eV}$. Degeneracies between shifts in the neutrino mass-squared differences and mixing angles and the new physics effect significantly relax the current constrains on the neutrino vacuum oscillation parameters.