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  • Open Access

Dark photon constraints using the ultrahigh-energy gamma-ray emission from galactic sources. A phenomenological study

Arlette Melo Galindo*

Sergio Hernández Cadena†

Rubén Alfaro Molina

  • State Key Laboratory of Dark Matter Physics, Tsung-Dao Lee Institute and School of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 201210, China

  • *Contact author: arlettemelo@estudiantes.unam.mx
  • †Contact author: shkdna@sjtu.edu.cn
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Phys. Rev. D 112, 103049 – Published 24 November, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/mzvm-hzkt

Abstract

Dark photons (Dphs) appear in theories beyond the Standard Model of particles (SM). Under certain conditions, it is possible to have a mixing between SM photons and Dphs that should be observed as anomalies in the spectrum of astrophysical sources. Our aim is to either find evidence of or set constraints on the existence of Dphs with masses in the range of μeV using observations of two galactic sources observed at TeV energies. We use the flux of the Crab Nebula and MGRO J1908+06 at TeV energies reported by High-Altitude Water Cherenkov observatory and Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory and assuming a model where Dphs can mix with SM photons in the vacuum; we compute the test statistic to search for evidence of Dphs in the form of variations or attenuation in the observed spectrum. We do not find statistically significant evidence of the existence of μeV Dphs. Then, we compute the 68% CL and 95% CL exclusion regions for Dphs with masses in the range from 10−8 to 10−5  eV and mixing angles with values between 0.01 and 1.0.

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Phys. Rev. D 112, 103049– Published 24 November, 2025
  • Received 30 June 2025
  • Revised 9 October 2025
  • Accepted 6 November 2025
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