skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Search for Spectral Irregularities due to Photon–Axionlike-Particle Oscillations with the Fermi Large Area Telescope

Journal Article · · Physical Review Letters

In this paper, we report on the search for spectral irregularities induced by oscillations between photons and axionlike-particles (ALPs) in the γ-ray spectrum of NGC 1275, the central galaxy of the Perseus cluster. Using 6 years of Fermi Large Area Telescope data, we find no evidence for ALPs and exclude couplings above 5 x 10-12 GeV-1 for ALP masses 0.5 ≲ ma ≲ 5 neV at 95% confidence. Finally, the limits are competitive with the sensitivity of planned laboratory experiments, and, together with other bounds, strongly constrain the possibility that ALPs can reduce the γ-ray opacity of the Universe.

Research Organization:
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States); Stockholm Univ. (Sweden)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE; National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR) (Italy)
Contributing Organization:
The Fermi-LAT Collaboration
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-76SF00515; FIRB-2012-RBFR12PM1F
OSTI ID:
1355688
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1248257
Journal Information:
Physical Review Letters, Vol. 116, Issue 16; ISSN 0031-9007
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 129 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (95)

Axion-like particle effects on the polarization of cosmic high-energy gamma sources journal May 2010
Semi-analytic modelling of the extragalactic background light and consequences for extragalactic gamma-ray spectra: Modelling of the EBL and gamma-ray spectra journal April 2012
THE EXTRAGALACTIC BACKGROUND LIGHT, THE HUBBLE CONSTANT, AND ANOMALIES: CONCLUSIONS FROM 20 YEARS OF TeV GAMMA-RAY OBSERVATIONS journal October 2015
The origin and evolution of cosmic magnetism journal December 2004
Cosmology of the invisible axion journal January 1983
Hardening of TeV gamma spectrum of active galactic nuclei in galaxy clusters by conversions of photons into axionlike particles journal October 2012
Magnetic power spectra from Faraday rotation maps: REALMAF and its use on Hydra A journal March 2011
Revisiting the SN1987A gamma-ray limit on ultralight axion-like particles journal February 2015
The intracluster magnetic field power spectrum in A2199 journal March 2012
Experimental Tests of the "Invisible" Axion journal October 1983
WISPy cold dark matter journal June 2012
THE THIRD CATALOG OF ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI DETECTED BY THE FERMI LARGE AREA TELESCOPE journal August 2015
Constraints on axionlike particles with H.E.S.S. from the irregularity of the PKS 2155 304 energy spectrum journal November 2013
Effects of initial axion production and photon–axion oscillation on type Ia supernova dimming journal September 2002
Problem of Strong P and T Invariance in the Presence of Instantons journal January 1978
Design concepts for the Cherenkov Telescope Array CTA: an advanced facility for ground-based high-energy gamma-ray astronomy journal November 2011
Searching for Dark Matter Annihilation from Milky Way Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies with Six Years of Fermi Large Area Telescope Data journal November 2015
Indications for a pair-production anomaly from the propagation of VHE gamma-rays journal February 2012
Effects of axion-photon mixing on gamma-ray spectra from magnetized astrophysical sources journal December 2007
Hints of the existence of axionlike particles from the gamma-ray spectra of cosmological sources journal June 2009
On detecting oscillations of gamma rays into axion-like particles in turbulent and coherent magnetic fields journal September 2014
Revisiting the Bound on Axion-Photon Coupling from Globular Clusters journal November 2014
2FHL: THE SECOND CATALOG OF HARD FERMI -LAT SOURCES journal January 2016
Extragalactic optical-infrared background radiation, its time evolution and the cosmic photon-photon opacity journal June 2008
Constraints on Axion-Like Particles from X-Ray Observations of the Hydra Galaxy Cluster journal July 2013
CP Conservation in the Presence of Pseudoparticles journal June 1977
A new Model of the Galactic Magnetic Field journal August 2012
Modeling the Extragalactic Background Light from Stars and dust journal February 2010
Axion-like particles, cosmic magnetic fields and gamma-ray astrophysics journal February 2008
Search for 100 MeV to 10 GeV γ-ray lines in the Fermi-LAT data and implications for gravitino dark matter in the μνSSM journal October 2014
Sensitivity of the Cherenkov Telescope Array to the detection of axion-like particles at high gamma-ray opacities journal December 2014
On the spine-layer scenario for the very high-energy emission of NGC 1275 journal July 2014
Axiverse extended: Vacuum destabilization, early dark energy, and cosmological collapse journal June 2011
Axion-like particle imprint in cosmological very-high-energy sources journal November 2011
First lower limits on the photon-axion-like particle coupling from very high energy gamma-ray observations journal February 2013
Constraining cosmic rays and magnetic fields in the Perseus galaxy cluster with TeV observations by the MAGIC telescopes journal May 2012
Future axion searches with the International Axion Observatory (IAXO) journal October 2013
Extragalactic background light inferred from AEGIS galaxy-SED-type fractions: EBL from AEGIS galaxy-SED-type fractions journal October 2010
Searching for axions and ALPs from string theory journal March 2014
A lower-limit flux for the extragalactic background light journal June 2010
The Coma cluster magnetic field from Faraday rotation measures journal April 2010
Photon propagation and the very high energy γ-ray spectra of blazars: how transparent is the Universe? journal March 2009
Stochastic conversions of TeV photons into axion-like particles in extragalactic magnetic fields journal December 2009
XMM‐Newton Observations of the Perseus Cluster. I. The Temperature and Surface Brightness Structure journal June 2003
Irregularity in gamma ray source spectra as a signature of axionlike particles journal August 2012
Photon-photon dispersion of TeV gamma rays and its role for photon-ALP conversion journal April 2015
The Low-Energy Frontier of Particle Physics journal November 2010
Clusters of galaxies: observational properties of the diffuse radio emission journal May 2012
Any light particle search II — Technical Design Report journal September 2013
Updated search for spectral lines from Galactic dark matter interactions with pass 8 data from the Fermi Large Area Telescope journal June 2015
Super-GZK photons from photon–axion mixing journal May 2003
Contemporaneous observations of the radio galaxy NGC 1275 from radio to very high energy γ -rays journal March 2014
A cosmological bound on the invisible axion journal January 1983
The Large-Sample Distribution of the Likelihood Ratio for Testing Composite Hypotheses journal March 1938
Asymptotic formulae for likelihood-based tests of new physics journal February 2011
Mixing of the photon with low-mass particles journal March 1988
Some properties of O(32) superstrings journal December 1984
Magnetic fields in the centre of the Perseus cluster journal June 2006
Non-Thermal Processes in Cosmological Simulations journal February 2008
A New Light Boson? journal January 1978
THE FERMI LARGE AREA TELESCOPE ON ORBIT: EVENT CLASSIFICATION, INSTRUMENT RESPONSE FUNCTIONS, AND CALIBRATION journal October 2012
Dark matter constraints from observations of 25 Milky Way satellite galaxies with the Fermi Large Area Telescope journal February 2014
Cosmological MHD simulation of a cooling flow cluster journal March 2008
Non-Thermal Processes in Cosmological Simulations book January 2008
Design concepts for the Cherenkov Telescope Array CTA: an advanced facility for ground-based high-energy gamma-ray astronomy text January 2011
Any light particle search II — Technical Design Report text January 2013
The Third Catalog of Active Galactic Nuclei Detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope text January 2015
Signatures of axion-like particles in the spectra of TeV gamma-ray sources text January 2007
Detecting Axion-Like Particles With Gamma Ray Telescopes text January 2007
Evidence for a new light spin-zero boson from cosmological gamma-ray propagation? text January 2007
The extragalactic optical-infrared background radiations, their time evolution and the cosmic photon-photon opacity text January 2008
Hints of the existence of Axion-Like-Particles from the gamma-ray spectra of cosmological sources text January 2009
Stochastic conversions of TeV photons into axion-like particles in extragalactic magnetic fields text January 2009
A Lower-Limit Flux for the Extragalactic Background Light text January 2010
Axion-like particle effects on the polarization of cosmic high-energy gamma sources text January 2010
Axion-like particle imprint in cosmological very-high-energy sources text January 2011
The intracluster magnetic field power spectrum in A2199 text January 2012
Indications for a pair-production anomaly from the propagation of VHE gamma-rays text January 2012
WISPy Cold Dark Matter text January 2012
A New Model of the Galactic Magnetic Field text January 2012
Clusters of galaxies : observational properties of the diffuse radio emission text January 2012
Extragalactic Background Light from Hierarchical Galaxy Formation: Gamma-ray Attenuation up to the Epoch of Cosmic Reionization and the First Stars text January 2012
First lower limits on the photon-axion-like particle coupling from very high energy gamma-ray observation text January 2013
Any Light Particle Search II -- Technical Design Report text January 2013
Constraints on axion-like particles from X-ray observations of Hydra galaxy cluster text January 2013
Dark Matter Constraints from Observations of 25 Milky Way Satellite Galaxies with the Fermi Large Area Telescope text January 2013
On the spine-layer scenario for the very high-energy emission of NGC 1275 text January 2014
On detecting oscillations of gamma rays into axion-like particles in turbulent and coherent magnetic fields text January 2014
Sensitivity of the Cherenkov Telescope Array to the detection of axion-like particles at high gamma-ray opacities text January 2014
Photon-photon dispersion of TeV gamma rays and its role for photon-ALP conversion text January 2014
The extragalactic background light, the Hubble constant, and anomalies: conclusions from 20 years of TeV gamma-ray observations text January 2015
Spectral analysis of Fermi-LAT blazars above 50 GeV text January 2015
XMM-Newton observations of the Perseus Cluster I: The temperature and surface brightness structure text January 2003
Magnetic Fields in the Center of the Perseus Cluster text January 2006
Super-GZK Photons from Photon-Axion Mixing text January 2003

Cited By (21)

Constraints on axion-like particles from non-observation of spectral modulations for X-ray point sources journal July 2017
Search for gamma-ray spectral modulations in Galactic pulsars journal April 2018
Blazar VHE spectral alterations induced by photon–ALP oscillations journal April 2019
Improving statistical sensitivity of X-ray searches for axion-like particles journal January 2019
Fermi-LAT observations of extreme spectral variability in IC 310 journal February 2019
Searching for the possible signal of the photon-axionlike particle oscillation in the combined GeV and TeV spectra of supernova remnants journal December 2019
Axion-like particles and recent observations of the cosmic infrared background radiation journal September 2017
Searching for spectral oscillations due to photon-axionlike particle conversion using the Fermi-LAT observations of bright supernova remnants journal March 2018
New bounds on axionlike particles from the Fermi Large Area Telescope observation of PKS 2155 304 journal March 2018
Idea of multi cohesive areas - foundation, current status and perspective journal April 2019
Physics potential of the International Axion Observatory (IAXO) text January 2019
Searching for Axion-Like Particles with X-ray Polarimeters journal April 2018
An Empirical Determination of the Intergalactic Background Light from uv to fir Wavelengths Using fir deep Galaxy Surveys and the Gamma-Ray Opacity of the Universe journal August 2016
Physics potential of the International Axion Observatory (IAXO) journal June 2019
Searching for axion-like particles with X-ray polarimeters text January 2018
Constraints on axion-like particles from non-observation of spectral modulations for X-ray point sources text January 2017
Physics potential of the International Axion Observatory (IAXO) text January 2019
Enhancing the Spectral Hardening of Cosmic TeV Photons by Mixing with Axionlike Particles in the Magnetized Cosmic Web text January 2017
Searching for spectral oscillations due to photon-axionlike particle conversion using the Fermi-LAT observations of bright supernova remnants text January 2018
A Dark Matter Hurricane: Measuring the S1 Stream with Dark Matter Detectors text January 2018
Axion Dark Matter Search with Interferometric Gravitational Wave Detectors preprint January 2019

Similar Records

γ-ray spectral evolution of NGC 1275 observed with FERMI large area telescope
Journal Article · Thu Apr 29 00:00:00 EDT 2010 · The Astrophysical Journal · OSTI ID:1355688

Search for Axionlike-Particle-Induced Prompt γ-Ray Emission from Extragalactic Core-Collapse Supernovae with the Fermi Large Area Telescope
Journal Article · Thu Jun 11 00:00:00 EDT 2020 · Physical Review Letters · OSTI ID:1355688

{gamma}-RAY SPECTRAL EVOLUTION OF NGC 1275 OBSERVED WITH FERMI LARGE AREA TELESCOPE
Journal Article · Thu May 20 00:00:00 EDT 2010 · Astrophysical Journal · OSTI ID:1355688