A Radio Telescope Search for Axions

2000/06/21 by B. D. Blout, E. J. Daw, M. P. Decowski +4 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Axion #Cold dark matter #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark matter #Monochromatic color #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Photon #Radio telescope #Telescope #astro-ph #hep-ex

paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/318310

published as Astrophys.J. 546 (2001) 825-828 · Submitted to Astrophysical Journal. 11 pages of text plus 6 figures

arxiv created 2000/06/21 · openalex publication_date 2001/01/10 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06

Abstract

The axion is a hypothetical elementary particle and a cold dark matter candidate. It could dominate the potential wells of most astrophysical objects. Axions spontaneously decay into nearly monochromatic microwave photons. We present results from a radio telescope search for these axion decay photons of mass m a = 298-363 μeV in Local Group dwarf galaxies. We report a limit on the axion-to-two-photon coupling constant g a γγ > 1.0 × 10 -9 GeV -1 .

Citations

• Constraints on very light axions from cavity experiments
• A simple solution to the strong CP problem with a harmless axion

Cited by

• Radio telescope search for the resonant conversion of cold dark matter axions from the magnetized astrophysical sources
• Heterodyne broadband detection of axion dark matter