Content area
Abstract
Identifying the nature and origin of dark matter is one of the major challenges for modern astro and particle physics. Direct dark-matter searches aim at an observation of dark-matter particles interacting within detectors. The focus of several such searches is on interactions with nuclei as provided e.g. by weakly interacting massive particles. However, there is a variety of dark-matter candidates favoring interactions with electrons rather than with nuclei. One example are dark photons, i.e., long-lived vector particles with a kinetic mixing to standard-model photons. In this work we present constraints on this kinetic mixing based on data from CRESST-II Phase 2 corresponding to an exposure before cuts of 52 kg-days. These constraints improve the existing ones for dark-photon masses between 0.3 and 0.7 keV/c.
Details
1 Max-Planck-Institut für Physik, Munich, Germany
2 Max-Planck-Institut für Physik, Munich, Germany; Departamento de Fisica, Universidade de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
3 INFN, Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, Assergi, Italy
4 INFN, Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, Assergi, Italy; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
5 Physik-Department and Excellence Cluster Universe, Technische Universität München, Garching, Germany
6 Physik-Department and Excellence Cluster Universe, Technische Universität München, Garching, Germany; Walther-Meißner-Institut für Tieftemperaturforschung, Garching, Germany
7 Institut für Hochenergiephysik der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna, Austria; Atominstitut, Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Austria
8 Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
9 Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
10 Max-Planck-Institut für Physik, Munich, Germany; INFN-Sezione di Roma, Rome, Italy
11 INFN, Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, Assergi, Italy; GSSI-Gran Sasso Science Institute, L’Aquila, Italy