SN 1987A Gamma-Ray Limits on the Conversion of Pseudoscalars

1996/05/31 by J. W. Brockway, E. D. Carlson, G. G. Raffelt · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #astro-ph #hep-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/0370-2693(96)00778-2

published as Phys.Lett. B383 (1996) 439-443 · 10 pages, plus 4 PostScript files (included)

arxiv created 1996/05/31 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30

Abstract

Pseudoscalar particles ϕ usually couple electromagnetically by an interaction of the form \frc14 g ϕF \widetilde F, allowing them to convert to photons in the presence of magnetic fields. Notably, new low-mass pseudoscalars emitted from supernova (SN) 1987A would have been converted to γ-rays in the intervening magnetic field of the galaxy. Therefore, measurements by the Solar Maximum Mission (SMM) Gamma-Ray Spectrometer (GRS) can limit the inverse coupling constant to g^-1>1×10¹¹ \rm GeV, assuming the pseudoscalar is massless. This is an improvement over other astrophysical limits of a factor of about 2.5.

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