Breaking up the Proton: An Affair with Dark Forces

Deep inelastic scattering of e(+/-) off protons is sensitive to contributions from dark photon exchange. Using HERA data fit to HERA's parton distribution functions (PDFs), we obtain the model-independent bound epsilon less than or similar to 0.02 on the kinetic mixing between hypercharge and the dark photon for dark photon masses. 10 GeV. This slightly improves on the bound obtained from electroweak precision observables. For higher masses, the limit weakens monotonically; epsilon less than or similar to 1 for a dark photon mass of 5 TeV. Utilizing PDF sum rules, we demonstrate that the effects of the dark photon cannot be (trivially) absorbed into refit PDFs and, in fact, lead to non-Dokshitzer-Gribov-Lipatov-Altarelli-Parisi (Bjorken x(B)-independent) scaling violations that could provide a smoking gun in data. The proposed e(+/-) p collider operating at root s = 1.3 TeV (Large Hadron Electron Collider) is anticipated to accumulate 10(3) times the luminosity of HERA, providing substantial improvements in probing the effects of a dark photon: sensitivity to. well below that probed by electroweak precision data is possible throughout virtually the entire dark photon mass range, as well as being able to probe to much higher dark photon masses, up to 100 TeV.

Automated summary

The deep inelastic scattering of e(+/-) off protons is sensitive to contributions from dark photon exchange. Utilizing HERA data fit to HERA's parton distribution functions (PDFs), a model-independent bound on the kinetic mixing between hypercharge and the dark photon is obtained, improving on previous bounds. The proposed Large Hadron Electron Collider is anticipated to provide substantial improvements in probing the effects of a dark photon throughout its mass range, including higher masses up to 100 TeV.