Axions from cooling compact stars: pair-breaking processes
Abstract
Once formed in a supernova explosion, a neutron star cools rapidly via neutrino emission during the first 10^4-10^5 yr of its life-time. Here we compute the axion emission rate from baryonic components of a star at temperatures below their respective critical temperatures T_c for normal-superfluid phase transition. The axion production is driven by a charge neutral weak process, associated with Cooper pair breaking and recombination. The requirement that the axion cooling does not overshadow the neutrino cooling puts a lower bound on the axion decay constant f_a > 6 10^9 T_{c9}^{-1} GeV, with T_{c9} = T_c/10^9 K. This translates into a upper bound on the axion mass m_a < 10^{-3} T_{c9} eV.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1205.6940,
title = {Axions from cooling compact stars: pair-breaking processes},
author = {Jochen Keller and Armen Sedrakian},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1205.6940},
year = {2012}
}
Comments
v1: 8 pages, 1 figure, v2: minor changes, 9 pages, 1 figure, matches published version