English

Is there a supernova bound on axions?

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2020-07-01 v2 High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

Abstract

We present a critical assessment of the SN1987A supernova cooling bound on axions and other light particles. Core-collapse simulations used in the literature to substantiate the bound omitted from the calculation the envelope exterior to the proto-neutron star (PNS). As a result, the only source of neutrinos in these simulations was, by construction, a cooling PNS. We show that if the canonical delayed neutrino mechanism failed to explode SN1987A, and if the pre-collapse star was rotating, then an accretion disk would form that could explain the late-time (t5t\gtrsim5 sec) neutrino events. Such accretion disk would be a natural feature if SN1987A was a collapse-induced thermonuclear explosion. Axions do not cool the disk and do not affect its neutrino output, provided the disk is optically-thin to neutrinos, as it naturally is. These considerations cast doubt on the supernova cooling bound.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1907.05020,
  title  = {Is there a supernova bound on axions?},
  author = {Nitsan Bar and Kfir Blum and Guido D'Amico},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1907.05020},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

10 pages, 5 figure. Added discussion, match PRD version

R2 v1 2026-06-23T10:18:07.185Z