The Physics of the Dark Photon: A Primer [Paperback]

This book is about the dark photon which is a new gauge boson whose existence has been conjectured. Due to its interaction with the ordinary, visible photon, such a particle can be experimentally detected via specific signatures. In this book, the authors review the physics of the dark photon from the theoretical and experimental point of view. They discuss the difference between the massive and the massless case, highlighting how the two phenomena arise from the same vector portal between the dark and the visible sector. A review of the cosmological and astrophysical observations is provided, together with the connection to dark matter physics. Then, a perspective on current and future experimental limits on the parameters of the massless and massive dark photon is given, as well as the related bounds on milli-charged fermions. The book is intended for graduate students and young researchers who are embarking on dark photon research, and offers them a clear and up-to-date introduction to the subject.

Marco Fabbrichesi works in high-energy theoretical physics. After graduating from the University of Virginia (USA), he has been a fellow at the JINR in Dubna (Russia), the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen (Denmark) and the Theory Division at CERN in Geneva (Switzerland). Currently, he is a researcher of the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Trieste. He has published more than 90 papers spanning from string theory, supersymmetry and dark matter physics to flavor physics, CP violation in the Kaon system and the hierarchy problem in the standard model.

Emidio Gabrielli works in high energy theoretical physics. After graduating in Physics at the University of RomelóP