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  • Open Access

Dark photon dark matter constraints at the Taiwan Axion Search Experiment with Haloscope

Yuan-Hann Chang1,2,*, Cheng-Wei Chiang3,4,†, Hien Thi Doan5,‡, Nick Houston6,§, Jinmian Li7,∥, Tianjun Li8,9,10,¶, Lina Wu11,**, and Xin Zhang12,13,††

  • *Contact author: changy@gate.sinica.edu.tw
  • †Contact author: chengwei@phys.ntu.edu.tw
  • ‡Contact author: hiendoan86@gmail.com
  • §Contact author: nhouston@bjut.edu.cn
  • ∥Contact author: jmli@scu.edu.cn
  • Contact author: tli@itp.ac.cn
  • **Contact author: wulina@xatu.edu.cn
  • ††Contact author: zhangxin104774@lnnu.edu.cn
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Phys. Rev. D 113, 052013 – Published 30 March, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/3yn8-xxrx

Abstract

The dark photon is a well motivated candidate for the dark matter that comprises most of the mass of our visible Universe, leading to worldwide experimental and observational efforts toward its discovery. A primary tool in this search is the cavity haloscope, which facilitates resonantly enhanced conversion to photons from both dark photons and axions. In this context, limits from axion search experiments are often directly converted into dark photon constraints, without re-analyzing the original data. However, this rescaling may not fully capture all of the relevant physics due to various reasons. By reexamining data taken by the Taiwan Axion Search Experiment with Haloscope experiment, we derive a world-leading constraint on the dark photon parameter space, excluding |ε|≳2×10−14 in the 19.46–19.84  μeV mass range, which exceeds the naïve “rescaling limit” by roughly a factor of two. We emphasize that accounting for the scanning timing information is crucial for deriving limits for the polarized dark photon case. In the data, we also analyze a tentative signal excess with a local significance of 4.7σ (mX≃19.5  μeV) that persists in the absence of a magnetic field. While this excess mimics the behavior of a dark photon signal, it has been excluded by recent results from the HAYSTAC and ORGAN-Q experiments. This case study, nevertheless, highlights the risk of discarding valid dark photon signals when relying on axion-specific magnetic field vetoes.

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 052013– Published 30 March, 2026
  • Received 9 July 2025
  • Accepted 27 February 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

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