2024/12/27 by David Alonso-González, Alonso-González, David, D. G. Cerdeño +5
Physics and Astronomy · #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Neutrino Physics Research #Atomic and Subatomic Physics Research
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2412.19890
In this work, we show that, if axion-like particles (ALPs) from core-collapse supernovae (SNe) couple to protons, they would produce very characteristic signatures in neutrino water Cherenkov detectors through their scattering off free protons via a p → p γ interactions. Specifically, sub-MeV ALPs would generate photons with energies ∼ 30 MeV, which could be observed by Super-Kamiokande and Hyper-Kamiokande as a delayed signal after a future detection of SN neutrinos. We apply this to a hypothetical neighbouring SN (at a maximum distance of 100 kpc) and demonstrate that the region in the parameter space with ALP masses between 10-4 MeV and 1 MeV and ALP-proton couplings in the range 3 × 10-6-4 × 10-5 could be probed. We argue that this new signature, combined with the one expected at ∼ 7 MeV from oxygen de-excitation, would allow us to disentangle ALP-neutron and ALP-proton couplings.