Paper detail

Solar constraints on hidden photons re-visited

We re-examine solar emission of hidden photons gamma' (mass m) caused by kinetic mixing. We calculate the emission rate with thermal field theory methods and with a kinetic equation that includes "flavor oscillations" and photon absorption and emission by the thermal medium. In the resonant case both methods yield identical emission rates which, in the longitudinal channel, are enhanced by a factor w_P^2/m^2 (plasma frequency w_P) in agreement with An, Pospelov and Pradler (2013). The Sun must not emit more energy in a "dark channel" than allowed by solar neutrino measurements, i.e., not more than 10% of its photon luminosity. Together with the revised emission rate, this conservative requirement implies a bound χ<4\times 10^-12 eV/m for the kinetic mixing parameter. This is the most restrictive stellar limit below m ~ 3 eV, whereas for larger masses the transverse channel dominates together with limits from other stars. A recent analysis of XENON10 data marginally improves the solar limit, leaving open the opportunity to detect solar hidden photons with future large-scale dark matter experiments. Detecting low-mass hidden photons with the ALPS-II photon-regeneration experiment also remains possible.