English

Constraints on Axion-like Particles from the Observation of Galactic Sources by LHAASO

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2024-01-04 v1 High Energy Physics - Experiment

Abstract

High-energy photons may oscillate with axion-like particles (ALPs) when they propagate through the Milky Way's magnetic field, resulting in an alteration in the observed photon energy spectrum. The ultra-high energy gamma-ray spectra, measured by the Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO) up to O(1) PeV\mathcal{O}(1)~\mathrm{PeV}, provide a promising opportunity to investigate the ALP-photon oscillation effect. In this study, we utilize the gamma-ray spectra of four Galactic sources measured by LHAASO, including the Crab Nebula, LHAASO J2226+6057, LHAASO J1908+0621, and LHAASO J1825-1326, to explore this effect. We employ the CLs\rm CL_s method to set constraints on the ALP parameters. Combing the observations of the four sources, our analysis reveals that the ALP-photon coupling gaγg_{a\gamma} is constrained to be smaller than 1.4×10101.4\times10^{-10} GeV1{\rm GeV}^{-1} for the ALP mass of 4×107 eV\sim 4\times10^{-7} ~\mathrm{eV} at the 95\% C.L. By combing the observations of the Crab Nebula from LHAASO and other experiments, we find that the ALP-photon coupling could be set to be about 7.2×10117.2\times10^{-11} GeV1{\rm GeV}^{-1} for the ALP mass 4×107 eV\sim 4 \times10^{-7}~\mathrm{eV} , which is in close proximity to the CAST constraint.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2401.01829,
  title  = {Constraints on Axion-like Particles from the Observation of Galactic Sources by LHAASO},
  author = {Jun Li and Xiao-Jun Bi and Lin-Qing Gao and Xiaoyuan Huang and Run-Min Yao and Peng-Fei Yin},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2401.01829},
  year   = {2024}
}