Enhanced Supernova Axion Emission and its Implications
Abstract
We calculate the axion emission rate from reactions involving thermal pions in matter encountered in supernovae and neutron star mergers, identify unique spectral features, and explore their implications for astrophysics and particle physics. We find that it is about 2-5 times larger than nucleon-nucleon bremsstrahlung, which in past studies was considered to be the dominant process. The axion spectrum is also found be much harder. Together, the larger rates and higher axion energies imply a stronger bound on the mass of the QCD axion, and better prospects for direct detection in a large underground neutrino detector from a nearby galactic supernova.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2010.02943,
title = {Enhanced Supernova Axion Emission and its Implications},
author = {Pierluca Carenza and Bryce Fore and Maurizio Giannotti and Alessandro Mirizzi and Sanjay Reddy},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2010.02943},
year = {2021}
}
Comments
6 pages, 1 figure. v2: minor corrections to match the published version. Added a discussion on the trapping regime