Implications of a dark sector $U(1)$ for gamma ray bursts

Implications of a dark sector $U (1)$ for gamma ray bursts

Tom Banks, Willy Fischler, Dustin Lorshbough, and Walter Tangarife

Phys. Rev. D 90, 043538 – Published 26 August 2014

Abstract

We discuss the implications for gamma ray burst studies of a dark unbroken $U (1)_{D}$ sector that couples predominantly through gravity to the visible sector. The dominant dark matter component remains neutral under $U (1)_{D}$ . The collapsar model is assumed to explain the origin of long gamma ray bursts. The main idea is that, by measuring the change in stellar black hole spin during the duration of the gamma ray burst, one can make inferences about the existence of a dark matter accretion disk. This could potentially provide evidence for the existence of a $U (1)_{D}$ sector.

Received 13 May 2014

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.90.043538

Authors & Affiliations

Tom Banks^*

Department of Physics and SCIPP, University of California at Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California 95064, USA and Department of Physics and NHETC, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, USA

Willy Fischler^†, Dustin Lorshbough^‡, and Walter Tangarife^§