English

Shining ALP Dark Radiation

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2022-06-15 v1 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics High Energy Physics - Experiment

Abstract

String scenarios typically not only predict axion-like particles (ALPs) but also significant amounts of ALP dark radiation originating from the decay of the inflaton or a more general modulus. In this paper, we study the decay of such non-thermally produced relativistic (but massive) ALPs to photons. If the ALPs are sufficiently highly energetic, contribute to ΔNeffO(0.001)\Delta N_{\rm eff} \gtrsim {\cal O}(0.001) and have a mass mam_a\gtrsim MeV we find that, using observations of X-, and γ\gamma-rays, the CMB and BBN, very small values of the ALP-photon coupling can be probed, corresponding to an origin of this coupling at the string (or even Planck) scale.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2110.03692,
  title  = {Shining ALP Dark Radiation},
  author = {Joerg Jaeckel and Wen Yin},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2110.03692},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

12 pages, 10 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-24T06:43:03.559Z