Circumstellar Medium of Supernovae as New Probes for Feebly-interacting Particles
Abstract
We propose a novel strategy to probe feebly-interacting particles (FIPs) by exploiting the dense, confined circumstellar medium (CSM) surrounding core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe). FIPs produced in the proto-neutron star can deposit substantial visible energy into the CSM via decay prior to the shock breakout from the progenitor star. This energy injection heats and ionizes the CSM, establishing a FIP-induced photosphere that generates distinctive precursor blackbody emission. Using early-time observations of SN 2023ixf, we translate the non-detection of excessive precursor luminosity into stringent new constraints on MeV-scale dark photons as an exemplary model. Our results significantly extend existing CCSN bounds and exclude previously unexplored regions of parameter space. We further demonstrate that the FIP-induced dust sublimation offers robust diagnostics for future Galactic SNe, opening a new avenue to explore the dark sector.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2603.09615,
title = {Circumstellar Medium of Supernovae as New Probes for Feebly-interacting Particles},
author = {Yu Cheng and Chui-Fan Kong and Yen-Hsun Lin and Meng-Ru Wu and Seokhoon Yun},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.09615},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
9+2 pages, 6+4 figures, 121 references