New constraint from supernova explosions on light particles beyond the Standard Model

Abstract

We propose a new constraint on light (sub-GeV) particles beyond the Standard Model that can be produced inside the proto-neutron star core resulting from the core-collapse supernova explosion. It is derived by demanding that the energy carried by exotic particles being transferred to the progenitor stellar envelopes must not exceed the explosion energy of < ∼ 2 · 10 51 erg of observed supernovae. We show specifically that for the case of a dark photon which kinetically mixes with the SM photon and decays predominantly to an e ± pair, a smaller mixing parameter of one order of magnitude below the well-established supernova cooling bound can be excluded. Furthermore, our bound fills the gap between the cooling bound and the region constrained by (non)observation of γ rays produced from supernovae for dark photons lighter than ∼ 20 MeV. Our result also rules out the possibility of aiding successful supernova explosions by transferring energy from the supernova core to the shock with exotic particles. *

Heavy sterile neutrino emission in core-collapse supernovae: constraints and signatures

“…We mention that a comparable bound has been obtained requiring that the energy transfer from heavy sterile neutrino decay into electromagnetic channels does not lead to too energetic SN explosions[24,35]). …”

Self-interacting dark matter without prejudice

“…Our summary figures show that the minimal mediator lifetime that is allowed is greater than 1 sec, found in the region m V ∼ 10 MeV and ϵ ∼ 10 −10 . Furthermore, taking into account the newly derived bound from [128] would require the mediator to have a lifetime longer than Oð10 5 Þ sec. Together with the BBN observations, it suggests that a thermalization between the dark and visible sectors at T ∼ MeV is very unlikely.…”

“…5 The relevant bounds on dark photon production from the SM sector reproduced in Fig. 4 are taken from [119,[124][125][126][127][128]. Bounds from a freeze-in production of V at T > 1 MeV derived in [121] are not applied, in accordance with our assumptions.…”

“…The various labels summarize principal detection strategies, astrophysical constraints from stellar energy loss ("stellar") [119], and diffuse γ-ray background ("diffuse") [120], from cooling of the proto-neutron star of SN1987A ("SN") [124], from beam-dump and collider experiments; see e.g., [125,126] and references therein. Hatched regions show recent exclusions derived from gamma-ray signatures from SN [127] (blue) and energy-transfer argument inside SN [128] (pink). In addition, contours of mediator lifetime τ V equal to 1 sec (BBN), 10 13 sec (CMB), as well as t U (universe) are shown.…”

A predictive mirror twin Higgs with small Z2 breaking

“…This requirement is satisfied if the twin photon is heavier than a few MeV. In the 1 − 10 MeV twin photon mass range, terrestrial and supernova constraints [55][56][57] require 10 −11 , which is too small to thermalize the twin and SM sectors. As shown in figure 2, larger kinetic mixing is allowed for slightly larger twin photon masses, with constraints from beam dump searches [58] and α + g e measurements [59] restricting some of the parameter space.…”