Diamond MD, Marques-Tavares G. γ-Ray Flashes from Dark Photons in Neutron Star Mergers.
PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 2022;
128:211101. [PMID:
35687451 DOI:
10.1103/physrevlett.128.211101]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/06/2021] [Revised: 03/03/2022] [Accepted: 04/14/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
In this Letter we begin the study of visible dark sector signals coming from binary neutron star mergers. We focus on dark photons emitted in the 10 ms-1 s after the merger, and show how they can lead to bright transient γ-ray signals. The signal will be approximately isotropic, and for much of the interesting parameter space will be close to thermal, with an apparent temperature of ∼100 keV. These features can distinguish the dark photon signal from the expected short γ-ray bursts produced in neutron star mergers, which are beamed in a small angle and nonthermal. We calculate the expected signal strength and show that for dark photon masses in the 1-100 MeV range it can easily lead to total luminosities larger than 10^{46} ergs for much of the unconstrained parameter space. This signal can be used to probe a large fraction of the unconstrained parameter space motivated by freeze-in dark matter scenarios with interactions mediated by a dark photon in that mass range. We also comment on future improvements when proposed telescopes and midband gravitational detectors become operational.
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