First Results from a Broadband Search for Dark Photon Dark Matter in the 44 to 52  μeV Range with a Coaxial Dish Antenna

• Published in: Physical review letters 2024-03, Vol.132 (13), p.131004-131004, Article 131004
• Main Authors: Knirck, Stefan, Hoshino, Gabe, Awida, Mohamed H, Cancelo, Gustavo I, Di Federico, Martin, Knepper, Benjamin, Lapuente, Alex, Littmann, Mira, Miller, David W, Mitchell, Donald V, Rodriguez, Derrick, Ruschman, Mark K, Sawtell, Matthew A, Stefanazzi, Leandro, Sonnenschein, Andrew, Teafoe, Gary W, Bowring, Daniel, Carosi, G, Chou, Aaron, Chang, Clarence L, Dona, Kristin, Khatiwada, Rakshya, Kurinsky, Noah A, Liu, Jesse, Pena, Cristián, Salemi, Chiara P, Wang, Christina W, Yu, Jialin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0031-9007; 1079-7114
• DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.132.131004

We present first results from a dark photon dark matter search in the mass range from 44 to 52  μeV (10.7-12.5 GHz) using a room-temperature dish antenna setup called GigaBREAD. Dark photon dark matter converts to ordinary photons on a cylindrical metallic emission surface with area 0.5  m^{2} and is focused by a novel parabolic reflector onto a horn antenna. Signals are read out with a low-noise receiver system. A first data taking run with 24 days of data does not show evidence for dark photon dark matter in this mass range, excluding dark photon photon mixing parameters χ≳10^{-12} in this range at 90% confidence level. This surpasses existing constraints by about 2 orders of magnitude and is the most stringent bound on dark photons in this range below 49  μeV.