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Illuminating Dark Photons with High-Energy Colliders

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abstract

High-energy colliders offer a unique sensitivity to dark photons, the mediators of a broken dark U(1) gauge theory that kinetically mixes with the Standard Model (SM) hypercharge. Dark photons can be detected in the exotic decay of the 125 GeV Higgs boson, h -> Z Z_D -> 4l, and in Drell-Yan events, pp -> Z_D -> ll. If the dark U(1) is broken by a hidden-sector Higgs mechanism, then mixing between the dark and SM Higgs bosons also allows the exotic decay h -> Z_D Z_D -> 4l. We show that the 14 TeV LHC and a 100 TeV proton-proton collider provide powerful probes of both exotic Higgs decay channels. In the case of kinetic mixing alone, direct Drell-Yan production offers the best sensitivity to Z_D, and can probe epsilon >~ 9 x 10^(-4) (4 x 10^(-4)) at the HL-LHC (100 TeV pp collider). The exotic Higgs decay h -> Z Z_D offers slightly weaker sensitivity, but both measurements are necessary to distinguish the kinetically mixed dark photon from other scenarios. If Higgs mixing is also present, then the decay h -> Z_D Z_D can allow sensitivity to the Z_D for epsilon >~ 10^(-9) - 10^(-6) (10^(-10) - 10^(-7)) for the mass range 2 m_mu < m_(Z_D) < m_h/2 by searching for displaced dark photon decays. We also compare the Z_D sensitivity at pp colliders to the indirect, but model-independent, sensitivity of global fits to electroweak precision observables. We perform a global electroweak fit of the dark photon model, substantially updating previous work in the literature. Electroweak precision measurements at LEP, Tevatron, and the LHC exclude epsilon as low as 3 x 10^(-2). Sensitivity can be improved by up to a factor of ~2 with HL-LHC data, and an additional factor of ~4 with ILC/GigaZ data.

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representative citing papers

Letter of Intent: The Forward Physics Facility

hep-ex · 2025-10-30 · unverdicted · novelty 5.0

Proposes construction of the Forward Physics Facility at the HL-LHC with four complementary detectors to exploit forward neutrinos and new-particle fluxes for neutrino, QCD, astroparticle, and dark-matter measurements.

WIMP Dark Matter within the dark photon portal

hep-ph · 2025-08-12 · unverdicted · novelty 3.0

Derives lower limits on dark photon parameters from thermal relic density for Dirac fermion and complex scalar WIMPs and compares resulting spin-independent cross sections to direct detection upper bounds.

The Dark Photon

hep-ph · 2020-05-04 · unverdicted · novelty 2.0

The paper surveys theoretical motivations, experimental searches, and bounds on the dark photon as a kinetically mixed gauge boson from a dark sector, covering both massive and massless cases along with related milli-charged fermion constraints.

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