voyions

Voyions are a hypothetical class of elementary quanta proposed in speculative physics as gauge bosons of a hidden sector known as the Voy field. They are envisioned as massless or very light vector particles that mediate a long-range force within the hidden sector and can mix weakly with the photon, allowing faint interactions with ordinary matter.

Origin and etymology: The term derives from a root meaning travel or movement, reflecting the proposed role of voyions in transmitting information or energy across cosmological or hidden-sector scales.

Properties: Voyions are imagined as spin-1 bosons, neutral, with extremely small or zero rest mass, and a coupling constant small enough to evade current laboratory constraints. They are thought to propagate at the speed of light in vacuum and to interact with a hidden current associated with the Voy field. In some models, kinetic mixing with electromagnetism enables their production in high-energy processes and possible detection as a form of dark radiation.

Theoretical framework: They appear in models with a hidden U(1) gauge symmetry and a mediator field that couples to the Standard Model via portal interactions. The dynamics resemble dark photon scenarios but with distinctive cosmological signatures, such as potential effects on the cosmic microwave background or a contribution to the radiation content of the universe.

Experimental status: No confirmed detection. Constraints arise from cosmology, astrophysical observations, and laboratory experiments searching for weakly coupled light vector bosons. Viable parameter space requires small mixing angles and very low masses.

Potential implications: If real, voyions could influence early-universe thermodynamics, structure formation, and energy transfer between hidden sectors, with possible relevance to dark matter and dark radiation research.

See also: dark photon, hidden sector, millicharge, dark radiation.