Polarization Signals from Axion-Photon Resonant Conversion in Neutron Star Magnetosphere
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
2025-02-12 v2
Abstract
Neutron stars provide ideal astrophysical laboratories for probing new physics beyond the Standard Model. If axions exist, photons can develop linear polarization during photon-axion conversion in the magnetic field of a neutron star. We find that the plasma in the neutron star magnetosphere could dramatically enhance the polarization through the resonant conversion effect. With the polarization measurements from PSR B0656+14, 4U 0142+61, and the benchmark polarization measurement in the mid-infrared band, we demonstrate that optical and infrared polarization from neutron stars can provide strong constraints on the axion-photon coupling over a broad axion mass range eV.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2402.15144,
title = {Polarization Signals from Axion-Photon Resonant Conversion in Neutron Star Magnetosphere},
author = {Ningqiang Song and Liangliang Su and Lei Wu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2402.15144},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
7+5 pages, 2+2 figures.V2: matches published paper in PRD