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arXiv · 2405.00153

Supernova limits on 'QCD axion-like particles'

Alessandro Lella·Eike Ravensburg·Pierluca Carenza·M. C. David Marsh
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Abstract

In this paper, we explore the phenomenology of massive Axion-Like Particles (ALPs) coupled to quarks and gluons, dubbed 'QCD ALPs', with an emphasis on the associated low-energy observables. ALPs coupled to gluons and quarks not only induce nuclear interactions at scales below the QCD-scale, relevant for ALP production in supernovae (SNe), but naturally also couple to photons similarly to the QCD-axion. We discuss the link between the high-energy formulation of ALP theories and their effective couplings with nucleons and photons. The induced photon coupling allows ALPs with masses $m_a\gtrsim1$ MeV to efficiently decay into photons, and astrophysical observables severely constrain the ALP parameter space. We show that a combination of arguments related to SN events rule out ALP-nucleon couplings down to $g_{aN}\gtrsim 10^{-11}- 10^{-10}$ for $m_a\gtrsim1$ MeV - a region of the parameter space that was hitherto unconstrained.

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Alessandro Lella, Eike Ravensburg, Pierluca Carenza, M. C. David Marsh. 2024-04-30. Supernova limits on 'QCD axion-like particles'. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.110.043019

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