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arXiv · 2405.19393

Supernova axions convert to gamma-rays in magnetic fields of progenitor stars

Claudio Andrea Manzari·Yujin Park·Benjamin R. Safdi·Inbar Savoray
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Abstract

It has long been established that axions could have been produced within the nascent proto-neutron-star formed following the type II supernova SN1987A, escaped the star due to their weak interactions, and then converted to gamma-rays in the Galactic magnetic fields; the non-observation of a gamma-ray flash coincident with the neutrino burst leads to strong constraints on the axion-photon coupling for axion masses $m_a \lesssim 10^{-10}$ eV. In this work we use SN1987A to constrain higher mass axions, all the way to $m_a \sim 10^{-3}$ eV, by accounting for axion production from the Primakoff process, nucleon bremsstrahlung, and pion conversion along with axion-photon conversion on the still-intact magnetic fields of the progenitor star. Moreover, we show that gamma-ray observations of the next Galactic supernova, leveraging the magnetic fields of the progenitor star, could detect quantum chromodynamics axions for masses above roughly 50 $\mu$eV, depending on the supernova. We propose a new full-sky gamma-ray satellite constellation that we call the GALactic AXion Instrument for Supernova (GALAXIS) to search for such future signals along with related signals from extragalactic neutron star mergers.

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Claudio Andrea Manzari, Yujin Park, Benjamin R. Safdi, Inbar Savoray. 2024-05-29. Supernova axions convert to gamma-rays in magnetic fields of progenitor stars. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.133.211002

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