Neutron Star Eclipses as Axion Laboratories

Abstract

In light-shining-through-walls experiments, axions and axion-like particles (ALPs) are searched for by exposing an optically thick barrier to a laser beam. In a magnetic field, photons could convert into ALPs in front of the barrier and reconvert behind it, giving rise to a signal that can occur only in the presence of such hidden particles. In this work, we utilize the light-shining-through-walls concept and apply it to astrophysical scales. Namely, we consider eclipsing binary systems, consisting of a neutron star, which is a bright source of X-rays, and a companion star with a much larger radius. Space observatories such as XMM-Newton and NuSTAR have performed extensive measurements of such systems, obtaining data on both out-of-eclipse photon rates and those during eclipses. The latter are typically $\mathscr{O}(10^2-10^3)$ times smaller, due to the fact that X-rays propagating along the line of sight from the neutron star to the X-ray observatory do not pass through the barrier that is the companion star. Using this attenuation, we derive a constraint on ALP-photon coupling of $g_{a\gamma} \leq 1.44 \times 10^{-10} \,\text{GeV}^{-1}$ (at $90\%$ C.L.) for the LMC X-4 eclipsing binary system, surpassing current bounds from light-shining-through-walls experiments. We also present future prospects that could realistically improve this limit by an order of magnitude in $g_{a\gamma}$, making it competitive with some of the strongest limits derived to date.