Sensitivity of Parity-Violating Electron Scattering to a Dark Photon

How to detect dark photons

27 December 2022

Measurements of a special type of electron scattering could provide a sensitive test for the existence of hypothetical invisible particles of light dubbed dark photons.

Dark matter is thought to make up 84% of the mass in the Universe, but no one yet knows what form it takes.

Dark photons have been proposed as a candidate for dark matter. If they exist, dark photons would be similar to normal photons except they would interact very little with matter and would have a small mass.

Now, calculations performed by three researchers from the University of Adelaide in Australia suggest a sensitive way to determine whether dark photons exist.

The existence of the dark photon could significantly affect measurements of electron scattering in which parity is violated — essentially the difference between scattering experiments performed in a lab and a mirror image of the interaction.

Supported content

References

1. Physical Review Letters 129, 011807 (2022). doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.011807