Searching for Axion-Photon Coupling with Baselines of kpc to Gpc

by Chen Sun

Tel Aviv University

at Particles and Fields Seminar

Mon, 16 May 2022, 14:00
Sacta-Rashi Building for Physics (54), room 207

Abstract

Axion couplings to photons could induce photon-axion conversion in the presence of magnetic fields in the Universe. In the first half of talk, I will show that this conversion impacts various cosmic distance measurements, such as luminosity distances to type Ia supernovae and angular distances to galaxy clusters. I will consider different combinations of the most up-to-date distance measurements to constrain the axion-photon coupling. In the second half, I will briefly discuss the axion stimulated decay, a novel approach to constrain axion-photon coupling by observing the echo signals in directions *opposite* to galactic supernova remnants (SNR) in the radio band. I will demonstrate that the strength of the "echo" signal from axion stimulated decay depends on the history of photon source. Even though SNRs are dim today, they could lead to the strongest bound of photon-axion coupling for axions around 10^{-6} eV.

Created on 12-05-2022 by Palti, Eran (palti)
Updaded on 12-05-2022 by Palti, Eran (palti)