Constraining dark photon properties with Asteroseismology
  Dark photons are particles invoked in some extensions of the Standard Model
which could account for at least part of the dark matter content of the
Universe. It has been proposed that the production of dark photons in stellar
interiors could happen at a rate that depends on both, the dark photon mass and
its coupling to Standard Model particles (the kinetic mixing parameter $\chi$).
In this work we aim at exploring the impact of dark photon productions in the
stellar core of solar mass RGB stars during late evolutionary phases. We
demonstrate that near the so-called RGB bump, dark photons production may be an
energy sink for the star sufficiently significative to modify the extension of
the star convective zones. We show that Asteroseismology is able to detect such
variations in the structure, allowing us to predict an upper limit of $\rm 900\
eV$ and $5\times 10^{-15}$ for the mass and kinetic mixing of the dark photons,
respectively. We also demonstrate that additional constraints can be derived
from the fact that dark photons increase the luminosity of the RGB tip over the
current observational uncertainties. This work thus paves the way for an
empirical approach to deepen the study of such dark-matter particles.
