Speaker
Description
Gravitational wave interferometers have studied compact object mergers and solidified our understanding of strong gravity. Their increasing precision raises the possibility of detecting new physics, especially in a neutron star binary system that contains dark hidden-sector particles. In particular, a new vector force between binary constituents, giving rise to dark electromagnetic phenomena, could measurably alter the inspiral waveforms, and could thus be constrained by interferometer results. In this work, we examine three mechanisms for neutron stars to acquire enough hidden-sector particles with requisite couplings to furnish a detectable signature from dark electromagnetism: accretion of dark matter from the galactic halo, thermal production of hidden-sector particles in the progenitor supernova, and dark neutron decay. Without explicitly rejecting this method of constraining new physics, we demonstrate that the repulsive nature of vector forces imposes stringent constraints on any putative particle physics model or astrophysical environment which could give rise to such gravitational signatures, with existing constraints already ruling out much of the observable parameter space and requiring exquisite fine-tuning for that which remains available.
