Direct deflection of Millicharged radiation

Abstract Millicharged particles are generic in theories of dark sectors. A cosmic or local abundance of them may be produced by the early universe, stellar environments, or the decay or annihilation of dark matter/dark energy. Furthermore, if such particles are light, these production channels resul...

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Main Authors: Asher Berlin, Surjeet Rajendran, Harikrishnan Ramani, Erwin H. Tanin
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: SpringerOpen 2025-04-01
Series:Journal of High Energy Physics
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP04(2025)198
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author Asher Berlin
Surjeet Rajendran
Harikrishnan Ramani
Erwin H. Tanin
author_facet Asher Berlin
Surjeet Rajendran
Harikrishnan Ramani
Erwin H. Tanin
author_sort Asher Berlin
collection DOAJ
description Abstract Millicharged particles are generic in theories of dark sectors. A cosmic or local abundance of them may be produced by the early universe, stellar environments, or the decay or annihilation of dark matter/dark energy. Furthermore, if such particles are light, these production channels result in a background of millicharged radiation. We show that light-shining-through-wall experiments employing superconducting RF cavities can also be used as “direct deflection” experiments to search for this relativistic background. The millicharged plasma is first subjected to an oscillating electromagnetic field of a driven cavity, which causes charge separation in the form of charge and current perturbations. In turn, these perturbations can propagate outwards and resonantly excite electromagnetic fields in a well-shielded cavity placed nearby, enabling detection. We estimate that future versions of the existing Dark SRF experiment can probe orders of magnitude of currently unexplored parameter space, including millicharges produced from the Sun, the cosmic neutrino background, or other mechanisms that generate a thermal abundance with energy density as small as ~ 10−4 that of the cosmic microwave background.
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spelling doaj-art-276d88ddd4964861a6e78dfdec10e4ce2025-08-20T01:49:40ZengSpringerOpenJournal of High Energy Physics1029-84792025-04-012025413610.1007/JHEP04(2025)198Direct deflection of Millicharged radiationAsher Berlin0Surjeet Rajendran1Harikrishnan Ramani2Erwin H. Tanin3Theoretical Physics Division, Fermi National Accelerator LaboratoryThe William H. Miller III Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins UniversityDepartment of Physics and Astronomy, University of DelawareStanford Institute for Theoretical Physics, Stanford UniversityAbstract Millicharged particles are generic in theories of dark sectors. A cosmic or local abundance of them may be produced by the early universe, stellar environments, or the decay or annihilation of dark matter/dark energy. Furthermore, if such particles are light, these production channels result in a background of millicharged radiation. We show that light-shining-through-wall experiments employing superconducting RF cavities can also be used as “direct deflection” experiments to search for this relativistic background. The millicharged plasma is first subjected to an oscillating electromagnetic field of a driven cavity, which causes charge separation in the form of charge and current perturbations. In turn, these perturbations can propagate outwards and resonantly excite electromagnetic fields in a well-shielded cavity placed nearby, enabling detection. We estimate that future versions of the existing Dark SRF experiment can probe orders of magnitude of currently unexplored parameter space, including millicharges produced from the Sun, the cosmic neutrino background, or other mechanisms that generate a thermal abundance with energy density as small as ~ 10−4 that of the cosmic microwave background.https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP04(2025)198New Light ParticlesSpecific BSM Phenomenology
spellingShingle Asher Berlin
Surjeet Rajendran
Harikrishnan Ramani
Erwin H. Tanin
Direct deflection of Millicharged radiation
Journal of High Energy Physics
New Light Particles
Specific BSM Phenomenology
title Direct deflection of Millicharged radiation
title_full Direct deflection of Millicharged radiation
title_fullStr Direct deflection of Millicharged radiation
title_full_unstemmed Direct deflection of Millicharged radiation
title_short Direct deflection of Millicharged radiation
title_sort direct deflection of millicharged radiation
topic New Light Particles
Specific BSM Phenomenology
url https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP04(2025)198
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