Exploring millicharged particles in laboratory and astrophysical strong-field regimes
Abstract
The probe of light dark particles beyond the Standard Model (SM) under a strong-field environment has drawn significant attention. In this work, we investigate the potential to search for and constrain light millicharged particles (MCPs) via strong electromagnetic fields in both laboratory laser experiments and astrophysical environments such as magnetars. We propose the MCP pair production from nonlinear Compton scattering through the interaction of a relativistic electron beam with a high-intensity laser pulse. The Furry picture and Volkov solution of Dirac equation in a background electromagnetic field are used to describe the electrons and MCPs under an external classical laser field. We calculate the cross sections of nonlinear Compton scattering to MCP pairs and take into account the irreducible SM background with missing neutrinos. We also revisit the MCP pair production via the Schwinger mechanism from magnetars with ultra-strong magnetic field and parallel electric field in polar gap. The energy loss due to the Schwinger pair production of MCPs and electric field acceleration is evaluated based on Ruderman-Sutherland model for confirmed magnetars. We find that the constraints from highly magnetized magnetars and the search potential in laboratory laser experiments are complementary.
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BibTeX
@misc{jiang2026exploring,
title = {{Exploring millicharged particles in laboratory and astrophysical strong-field regimes}},
author = {Cheng-Rui Jiang and Tong Li and Kai Ma and Haolong Wang},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.03399},
eprint = {2609.03399},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.03399},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Exploring millicharged particles in laboratory and astrophysical strong-field regimes
AU - Cheng-Rui Jiang
AU - Tong Li
AU - Kai Ma
AU - Haolong Wang
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/03
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.03399
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.03399
AB - The probe of light dark particles beyond the Standard Model (SM) under a strong-field environment has drawn significant attention. In this work, we investigate the potential to search for and constrain light millicharged particles (MCPs) via strong electromagnetic fields in both laboratory laser experiments and astrophysical environments such as magnetars. We propose the MCP pair production from nonlinear Compton scattering through the interaction of a relativistic electron beam with a high-intensity laser pulse. The Furry picture and Volkov solution of Dirac equation in a background electromagnetic field are used to describe the electrons and MCPs under an external classical laser field. We calculate the cross sections of nonlinear Compton scattering to MCP pairs and take into account the irreducible SM background with missing neutrinos. We also revisit the MCP pair production via the Schwinger mechanism from magnetars with ultra-strong magnetic field and parallel electric field in polar gap. The energy loss due to the Schwinger pair production of MCPs and electric field acceleration is evaluated based on Ruderman-Sutherland model for confirmed magnetars. We find that the constraints from highly magnetized magnetars and the search potential in laboratory laser experiments are complementary.
ER -