Amplifying nonresonant production of dark sector particles in scattering dominance regime

We investigate the enhancement of dark sector particle production within the scattering dominant regime. These particles typically exhibit a slight mixing with Standard Model particles through various portals, allowing for their generation through in-medium oscillation from Standard Model particle sources. Our analysis reveals that in the scattering dominance regime, with a significantly smaller scattering mean free path <a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><a:msub><a:mi>λ</a:mi><a:mrow><a:mi>sca</a:mi></a:mrow></a:msub></a:math> compared to the absorption mean free path <c:math xmlns:c="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><c:msub><c:mi>λ</c:mi><c:mi>abs</c:mi></c:msub></c:math>, the nonresonant production of sterile states can experience an enhancement by a factor of <e:math xmlns:e="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><e:msub><e:mi>λ</e:mi><e:mi>abs</e:mi></e:msub><e:mo>/</e:mo><e:msub><e:mi>λ</e:mi><e:mrow><e:mi>sca</e:mi></e:mrow></e:msub></e:math>. This phenomenon is demonstrated within the context of kinetic mixing dark photon production at a reactor, precisely satisfying this condition. By incorporating this collisional enhancement, we find that the current sensitivity to the mixing parameter <g:math xmlns:g="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><g:mi>ε</g:mi></g:math> for dark photons in the TEXONO experiment can be significantly improved across a range spanning from tens of eV to MeV. This advancement establishes the most stringent laboratory constraint within this mass spectrum for the dark photon. Sterile neutrino production, however, does not exhibit such enhancement, either due to the failure to meet the scattering dominance criterion or the neutrino damping in resonant production. Published by the American Physical Society 2024