English

Photon-ALP beam propagation from Mrk 501

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2025-03-03 v1

Abstract

The very high energy (VHE, E >> 100 GeV100 \mathrm~{GeV}) γ\gamma-ray observations offer a possibility of indirectly detecting the presence of axion-like particles (ALPs). The paper focuses on detecting photon-ALP oscillations on γ\gamma-ray spectra from distant sources in astrophysical magnetic fields. Strong evidence indicates that: (1) the photon-ALP oscillations can effectively decrease the photon absorption at energies of several tens of TeV -- caused by the extragalactic background light (EBL) -- to a level able to explain better the observational data; (2) the impact of magnetic-field models in photon-ALP beams crossing several magnetized media is significant. We revisit the expected signature for the photon-ALP oscillation effects on γγ\gamma-\gamma absorption in the TeV spectra of Mrk 501. The result issues that the photon-ALP beam propagation with mass ma1010eV\mathrm{m_a}\sim10^{-10} eV and two-photon coupling constant gaγ0.417×1011GeV1\begin{aligned}g_{a\gamma}\sim0.417\times10^{-11}GeV^{-1}\end{aligned} crossing reasonable magnetic field scenarios considered here can roughly reproduce the observed TeV γ\gamma-ray spectra for Mrk 501.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2502.20804,
  title  = {Photon-ALP beam propagation from Mrk 501},
  author = {L. J. Dong and Y. G. Zheng and S. J. Kang and C. Y. Yang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2502.20804},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

Accepted for publication in PRD, 14 pages, 4 figures, 1 table

R2 v1 2026-06-28T22:01:23.803Z