We study the effects of exceptionally light QCD axions on the stellar configuration of white dwarfs. At finite baryon density, the non-derivative coupling of the axion to nucleons displaces the axion from its in-vacuum minimum which implies a reduction of the nucleon mass. This dramatically alters the composition of stellar remnants. In particular, the modifications of the mass-radius relationship of white dwarfs allow us to probe large regions of unexplored parameter space without requiring that axions are dark matter.
@article{arxiv.2211.02661,
title = {White dwarfs as a probe of exceptionally light QCD axions},
author = {Reuven Balkin and Javi Serra and Konstantin Springmann and Stefan Stelzl and Andreas Weiler},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2211.02661},
year = {2024}
}
Comments
13 pages, 12 figures, added appendices, published version