Probing the Axion-Photon-Dark Photon Interaction at Future $e^+e^-$ Colliders

Abstract

We study the interaction between photons, dark photons, and axions at future lepton colliders, focusing on single-photon events with missing energy as the experimental signature. We find that future facilities such as the ILC, CEPC, and FCC-ee will be sensitive to the axion--photon--dark photon coupling down to the order of $10^{-4}\, \mathrm{GeV}^{-1}$ for dark photon masses around $O(10~\mathrm{GeV})$, assuming that the axion is extremely light and escapes detection. We further show that longitudinal beam polarization at the ILC can enhance the signal significance by a factor of four, providing the strongest projected reach in the model parameter space. Existing constraints from LEP II are analyzed for comparison. Furthermore, the mass of dark photon can be determined by measuring the sharp drop-off in the distribution of the recoil mass.