- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review Letters

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Editors' Suggestion
  • Open Access

Runaway Gravitational Production of Dark Photons

Christian Capanelli1,*, Leah Jenks2,†, Edward W. Kolb3,‡, and Evan McDonough4,§

  • *Contact author: christian.capanelli@mail.mcgill.ca
  • †Contact author: ljenks@uchicago.edu
  • ‡Contact author: Rocky.Kolb@uchicago.edu
  • §Contact author: e.mcdonough@uwinnipeg.ca
PDF

Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 061602 – Published 9 August, 2024

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.133.061602

Abstract

We demonstrate that gravitational particle production of a massive, Abelian, vector (Proca) field during inflation in the presence of nonminimal coupling to gravity may suffer from an instability which leads to runaway production of high-momentum modes. This is untenable unless there is some mechanism to regulate the runaway. We discuss the parameter space of the particle mass and nonminimal couplings where such a runaway occurs and possible ways to tame the runaway. We find that there is no obvious way to resolve the runaway in a UV completion or with kinetic mixing to the standard model.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (34)

  1. A. Proca, Sur la theorie ondulatoire des electrons positifs et negatifs, J. Phys. Radium 7, 347 (1936).
  2. A. Karozas, S. F. King, G. K. Leontaris, and D. K. Papoulias, Low scale string theory benchmarks for hidden photon dark matter interpretations of the XENON1T anomaly, Phys. Rev. D 103, 035019 (2021).
  3. L. A. Anchordoqui, I. Antoniadis, K. Benakli, and D. Lust, Anomalous U(1) gauge bosons as light dark matter in string theory, Phys. Lett. B 810, 135838 (2020).
  4. W. Heisenberg and H. Euler, Folgerungen aus der Diracschen Theorie des Positrons, Z. Phys. 98, 714 (1936).
  5. B. Holdom, Two U(1)’s and epsilon charge shifts, Phys. Lett. 166B, 196 (1986).
  6. S. A. Abel, M. D. Goodsell, J. Jaeckel, V. V. Khoze, and A. Ringwald, Kinetic mixing of the photon with hidden U(1)s in string phenomenology, J. High Energy Phys. 07 (2008) 124.
  7. M. Fabbrichesi, E. Gabrielli, and G. Lanfranchi, The dark photon, arXiv:2005.01515.
  8. M. Novello and J. M. Salim, Nonlinear photons in the Universe, Phys. Rev. D 20, 377 (1979).
  9. P. C. W. Davies and D. J. Toms, Boundary effects and the massless limit of the photon, Phys. Rev. D 31, 1363 (1985).
  10. C. M. Will and J. Nordtvedt, Kenneth, Conservation laws and preferred frames in relativistic gravity. I. Preferred-frame theories and an extended PPN formalism, Astrophys. J. 177, 757 (1972).
  11. D. J. Toms, Quantization of the minimal and non-minimal vector field in curved space, arXiv:1509.05989.
  12. I. L. Buchbinder, T. de Paula Netto, and I. L. Shapiro, Massive vector field on curved background: Nonminimal coupling, quantization, and divergences, Phys. Rev. D 95, 085009 (2017).
  13. M. S. Ruf and C. F. Steinwachs, Renormalization of generalized vector field models in curved spacetime, Phys. Rev. D 98, 025009 (2018).
  14. E. W. Kolb and A. J. Long, Completely dark photons from gravitational particle production during the inflationary era, J. High Energy Phys. 03 (2021) 283.
  15. O. Özsoy and G. Tasinato, Vector dark matter, inflation and non-minimal couplings with gravity, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 06 (2024) 003.
  16. J. A. R. Cembranos, L. J. Garay, A. Parra-López, and J. M. Sánchez Velázquez, Vector dark matter production during inflation and reheating, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 02 (2024) 013.
  17. C. Capanelli, L. Jenks, E. W. Kolb, and E. McDonough, Gravitational production of completely dark photons with nonminimal coupling to gravity, arXiv:2405.19390.
  18. L. Parker and D. Toms, Quantum Field Theory in Curved Spacetime: Quantized Fields and Gravity, Cambridge Monographs on Mathematical Physics (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 2009), 10.1017/CBO9780511813924.008.
  19. N. D. Birrell and P. C. W. Davies, Quantum Fields in Curved Space, Cambridge Monographs on Mathematical Physics (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 1982), 10.1017/CBO9780511622632.
  20. T. S. Bunch and P. Panangaden, On renormalisation of λϕ4 field theory in curved space-time. II, J. Phys. A 13, 919 (1980).
  21. P. W. Graham, J. Mardon, and S. Rajendran, Vector dark matter from inflationary fluctuations, Phys. Rev. D 93, 103520 (2016).
  22. A. Ahmed, B. Grzadkowski, and A. Socha, Gravitational production of vector dark matter, J. High Energy Phys. 08 (2020) 059.
  23. E. W. Kolb, A. J. Long, and E. McDonough, Gravitino swampland conjecture, Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 131603 (2021).
  24. E. W. Kolb, A. J. Long, and E. McDonough, Catastrophic production of slow gravitinos, Phys. Rev. D 104, 075015 (2021).
  25. D. Antypas et al., New horizons: Scalar and vector ultralight dark matter, arXiv:2203.14915.
  26. A. Caputo, A. J. Millar, C. A. O’Hare, and E. Vitagliano, Dark photon limits: A handbook, Phys. Rev. D 104, 095029 (2021).
  27. S. Heeba, T. Lin, and K. Schutz, Inelastic freeze-in, Phys. Rev. D 108, 095016 (2023).
  28. M. J. Dolan, F. J. Hiskens, and R. R. Volkas, Constraining dark photons with self-consistent simulations of globular cluster stars, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 05 (2024) 099.
  29. N. Brahma, S. Heeba, and K. Schutz, Resonant pseudo-Dirac dark matter as a sub-GeV thermal target, Phys. Rev. D 109, 035006 (2024).
  30. E. W. Kolb and A. J. Long, Cosmological gravitational particle production and its implications for cosmological relics, arXiv:2312.09042.
  31. M. E. Peskin and D. V. Schroeder, An Introduction to Quantum Field Theory (Addison-Wesley, Reading, USA, 1995).
  32. L. Amendola, Cosmology with nonminimal derivative couplings, Phys. Lett. B 301, 175 (1993).
  33. E. W. Kolb, A. J. Long, E. McDonough, and G. Payeur, Completely dark matter from rapid-turn multifield inflation, J. High Energy Phys. 02 (2023) 181.
  34. C. Capanelli, L. Jenks, E. W. Kolb, and E. McDonough, Gravitational production of completely dark photons with nonminimal couplings to gravity, arXiv:2405.19390.

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 061602– Published 9 August, 2024
  • Received 10 May 2024
  • Revised 7 July 2024
  • Accepted 12 July 2024
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

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.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation