Portal Connecting Dark Photons and Axions

Abstract

The dark photon and the axion (or axion-like particle) are popular light particles of the hidden sector. Each of them has been actively searched for through the couplings called the vector portal and the axion portal. We introduce a new portal connecting the dark photon and the axion (axion--photon--dark photon, axion--dark photon--dark photon), which emerges in the presence of the two particles. This dark axion portal is genuinely new couplings, not just from a product of the vector portal and the axion portal, because of the internal structure of these couplings. We present a simple model that realizes the dark axion portal and discuss why it warrants a rich phenomenology.