Dark photon constraints from CMB temperature anisotropies

TL;DR

This paper explores how light dark photons affect CMB temperature anisotropies and demonstrates that current data can significantly tighten constraints on their properties.

Contribution

It provides new constraints on light dark photons by analyzing their impact on CMB anisotropies using advanced cosmological simulations and Planck data.

Findings

Constraints on dark photon mixing parameters improved by an order of magnitude.

Dark photon mass range $3\times 10^{-15}$ to $3\times 10^{-12}$ eV analyzed.

Resonant photon-dark photon conversion amplifies CMB anisotropies.

Abstract

The resonant conversion, within the inter-galactic medium, of regular photons into dark photons amplifies the anisotropy observed in the CMB, thereby imposing stringent constraints on the existence of light dark photons. In this study, we investigate the impact of light dark photons, with masses in the range $3\times 10^{-15} ~\rm{eV} < m_{A'} < 3\times 10^{-12}~\rm{eV}$ on the power spectrum of temperature anisotropies within the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation utilizing the state-of-the-art large-volume FLAMINGO cosmological simulations. Our results show that using full Planck data, one can expect the existing constraints on the dark photon mixing parameter in this mass range to improve by an order of magnitude.