Polarization observables for millicharged particles in photon collisions

Abstract

Particles in a hidden sector can potentially acquire a small electric charge through their interaction with the Standard Model and can consequently be observed as millicharged particles. We systematically compute the production of millicharged scalar, fermion and vector boson particles in collisions of polarized photons. The presented calculation is model independent and is based purely on the assumptions of electromagnetic gauge invariance and unitarity. Polarization observables are evaluated and analyzed for each spin case. We show that the photon polarization asymmetries are a useful tool for discriminating between the spins of the produced millicharged particles. Phenomenological implications for searches of millicharged particles in dedicated photon-photon collision experiments are also discussed.

Comments: 11 pages, 7 figures, Appendix added, same as published version