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

Phys Rev Lett. 2024 Mar 29;132(13):131004. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.132.131004.

Abstract

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.