Enhanced Stellar Production of Weakly Interacting Slim Particles from Non-Thermal Nuclear Cascades
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arXiv
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| Autori principali: | , , |
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| Natura: | Preprint |
| Pubblicazione: |
2026
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| _version_ | 1866916038477611008 |
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| author | Fonoll, Víctor Giannotti, Maurizio Lucente, Giuseppe |
| author_facet | Fonoll, Víctor Giannotti, Maurizio Lucente, Giuseppe |
| contents | Weakly interacting slim particles (WISPs) can be produced in stars through the conversion of non-thermal photons generated in nuclear reactions. Previous studies have generally treated these sources only at the level of their primary injection lines. We show that this picture is incomplete: repeated Compton scatterings redistribute the injected photons into a broad low-energy spectrum, while associated positrons can thermalize and annihilate into a 511~keV line. Together, these effects define a generic non-thermal photon reservoir and thus a broadly applicable source term for any photon-coupled WISP. We develop a general framework for this mechanism and illustrate its impact with the example of dark-photon production in the solar pp chain. Our results show that non-thermal stellar WISP production can be substantially underestimated if Compton reprocessing and positron annihilation are neglected. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_23317 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Enhanced Stellar Production of Weakly Interacting Slim Particles from Non-Thermal Nuclear Cascades Fonoll, Víctor Giannotti, Maurizio Lucente, Giuseppe High Energy Physics - Phenomenology High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena Solar and Stellar Astrophysics Nuclear Theory Weakly interacting slim particles (WISPs) can be produced in stars through the conversion of non-thermal photons generated in nuclear reactions. Previous studies have generally treated these sources only at the level of their primary injection lines. We show that this picture is incomplete: repeated Compton scatterings redistribute the injected photons into a broad low-energy spectrum, while associated positrons can thermalize and annihilate into a 511~keV line. Together, these effects define a generic non-thermal photon reservoir and thus a broadly applicable source term for any photon-coupled WISP. We develop a general framework for this mechanism and illustrate its impact with the example of dark-photon production in the solar pp chain. Our results show that non-thermal stellar WISP production can be substantially underestimated if Compton reprocessing and positron annihilation are neglected. |
| title | Enhanced Stellar Production of Weakly Interacting Slim Particles from Non-Thermal Nuclear Cascades |
| topic | High Energy Physics - Phenomenology High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena Solar and Stellar Astrophysics Nuclear Theory |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.23317 |