Photonic dark matter portal revisited

Abstract

In our previous paper, we studied a model of dark matter (DM) in which the hidden sector interacts with standard model particles via a hidden photonic portal (HP). We investigated the effects of this new interaction on the hydrogen atom and obtained an upper bound for the coupling of the model as f ≤ 10^-12. In this work, we study the effects of HP on two interesting exotic atoms namely muonium and positronium. We obtain a tighter upper limit on the coupling as f ≤ 10^-13. We also calculate the change (shift) in the Aharonov-Bohm phase due to HP and find that the phase shift is negligibly small (for DM particles mass in the GeV range). Recently a 3.5 keV X-ray line signal observed in the spectrum of 73 galaxy clusters, reported by the XXM-Newton X-ray observatory. Since in HP model the DM particles can decay directly into photons, so we finally calculate the value of the coupling constant f using the condition ΔE_DM = 3.5 keV.