Constraining dark photon parameters based on the very high energy observations of blazars

Abstract

Abstract Dark photon is a new gauge boson beyond the Standard Model as a kind of dark matter (DM) candidate. Dark photon dark matter (DPDM) interacts with electromagnetic fields via kinetic mixing, implicating an approach to give a constraint with extragalactic very high energy (VHE) sources. In this work, we attempt to constrain the kinetic mixing from the photon-dark photon scattering process in the host galaxy of blazar, the intergalactic medium and the Milky Way. The VHE photons from a blazar would pass through a dense DM spike around the supermassive black hole where the absorption from DPDM is dramatically enhanced. The kinetic mixing is constrained to be $$\epsilon \sim 10^{-7}$$ ϵ ∼ 10 - 7 at a 95 $$\%$$ % confidence level with $$m_\textrm{D}\sim 0.03 {-} 1$$ m D ∼ 0.03 - 1 eV mass range from the observations of Markarian (Mrk) 421 and Mrk 501.