Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 011102 (2021) - Edges and Endpoints in 21-cm Observations from Resonant Photon Production

Edges and Endpoints in 21-cm Observations from Resonant Photon Production

Andrea Caputo, Hongwan Liu, Siddharth Mishra-Sharma, Maxim Pospelov, Joshua T. Ruderman, and Alfredo Urbano

Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 011102 – Published 30 June 2021

Abstract

We introduce a novel class of signatures—spectral edges and end points—in 21-cm measurements resulting from interactions between the standard and dark sectors. Within the context of a kinetically mixed dark photon, we demonstrate how resonant dark photon-to-photon conversions can imprint distinctive spectral features in the observed 21-cm brightness temperature, with implications for current, upcoming, and proposed experiments targeting the cosmic dawn and the dark ages. These signatures open up a qualitatively new way to look for physics beyond the Standard Model using 21-cm observations.

Received 15 September 2020
Revised 10 December 2020
Accepted 25 May 2021

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.011102

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Cosmic microwave background Dark matter Hypothetical particle physics models Particle astrophysics Particle dark matter Radio, microwave, & sub-mm astronomy

Axions Intergalactic medium

Gravitation, Cosmology & AstrophysicsParticles & Fields

Authors & Affiliations

Andrea Caputo ^1,*, Hongwan Liu ^2,3,†, Siddharth Mishra-Sharma ^2,‡, Maxim Pospelov^4,5, Joshua T. Ruderman ^2,6,§, and Alfredo Urbano ^7,8,∥

¹Instituto de Física Corpuscular, CSIC-Universitat de Valencia, Apartado de Correos 22085, E-46071, Spain
²Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics, Department of Physics, New York University, New York, New York 10003, USA
³Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
⁴School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA
⁵William I. Fine Theoretical Physics Institute, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA
⁶Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), D-22607 Hamburg, Germany
⁷INFN sezione di Trieste, SISSA, via Bonomea 265, I-34132 Trieste, Italy
⁸IFPU, Institute for Fundamental Physics of the Universe, via Beirut 2, I-34014 Trieste, Italy