New constraints for heavy axion-like particles from supernovae
Abstract
We derive new constraints on the coupling of heavy pseudoscalar (axion-like) particles to photons, based on the gamma ray flux expected from the decay of these particles into photons. After being produced in the supernova core, these heavy axion-like particles would escape and a fraction of them would decay into photons before reaching the Earth. We have calculated the expected flux on Earth of these photons from the supernovae SN 1987A and Cassiopeia A and compared our results to data from the Fermi Large Area Telescope. This analysis provides strong constraints on the parameter space for axion-like particles. For a particle mass of 100 MeV, we find that the Peccei-Quinn constant, f_a, must be greater than about 10^{15} GeV. Alternatively, for fa=10^{12} GeV, we exclude the mass region between approximately 100 eV and 1 GeV.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1009.5714,
title = {New constraints for heavy axion-like particles from supernovae},
author = {Maurizio Giannotti and Leanne D. Duffy and Rafaela Nita},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1009.5714},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
14 pages, 4 figures. Version published in JCAP. Major changes in the exposition. Added a figure. Added appendix. Minor changes in the results. Some changes in the bibliography