A Cavity Experiment to Search for Hidden Sector Photons

Abstract

We propose a cavity experiment to search for low mass extra U(1) gauge bosons with gauge-kinetic mixing with the ordinary photon, so-called paraphotons. The setup consists of two microwave cavities shielded from each other. In one cavity, paraphotons are produced via photon-paraphoton oscillations. The second, resonant, cavity is then driven by the paraphotons that permeate the shielding and reconvert into photons. This setup resembles the classic ``light shining through a wall'' setup. However, the high quality factors achievable for microwave cavities and the good sensitivity of microwave detectors allow for a projected sensitivity for photon-paraphoton mixing of the order of \chi~10^{-12} to 10^{-8}, for paraphotons with masses in the \mu eV to meV range -- exceeding the current laboratory- and astrophysics-based limits by several orders of magnitude. Therefore, this experiment bears significant discovery potential for hidden sector physics.