Astrophysical Bounds on Milli-Charged Particles in Models with a Paraphoton

TL;DR

The upper bound on the number of relativistic species present at nucleosynthesis has been used to constrain particles with electric charge and the bound previously calculated for millicharged particles that interact with a shadow photon is correct.

Abstract

The upper bound on the number of relativistic species present at nucleosynthesis has been used to constrain particles with electric charge $εe$ ($10^{-8} < ε<1$). We correct the bound previously calculated for milli-charged particles that interact with a shadow photon. We also discuss the additional constraints from the properties of red giants and of Supernova 1987A.

Figures (1)

• Figure 1: Regions of mass-charge space ruled out for milli-charged particles in the model with a paraphoton. The bounds arise from the following constraints: 1---accelerator experiments; 2---the Lamb shift; 3---nucleosynthesis; 4---$\Omega < 1$; 5---plasmon decay in red giants; 6---plasmon decay in white dwarfs; 7---dark matter searches; 8---Supernova 1987A; 9---$\gamma'$ emission by red giants. The bounds 1,2 and 4-7 are from reference 6, 8 is from reference 5, and 3 and 9 are from this paper.