Green Bank and Effelsberg Radio Telescope Searches for Axion Dark Matter Conversion in Neutron Star Magnetospheres

Foster, Joshua W.; Kahn, Yonatan; Macias, Oscar; Sun, Zhiquan; Eatough, Ralph P.; Kondratiev, Vladislav I.; Peters, Wendy M.; Weniger, Christoph; Safdi, Benjamin R.

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.125.171301

Green Bank and Effelsberg Radio Telescope Searches for Axion Dark Matter Conversion in Neutron Star Magnetospheres

Journal Article · Tue Oct 20 00:00:00 EDT 2020 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.125.171301· OSTI ID:1852944

Foster, Joshua W. ^[1]; Kahn, Yonatan ^[2]; ^[3]; ^[4]; ^[5]; ^[6]; Peters, Wendy M. ^[7]; Weniger, Christoph ^[8]; ^[4]

Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States); OSTI
Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States)
Univ. of Tokyo (Japan); Univ. of Amsterdam (Netherlands)
Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)
Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China); Max-Planck-Institut fur Radioastronomie, Bonn (Germany)
ASTRON, Dwingeloo (Netherlands); Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), Moscow (Russian Federation)
Naval Research Lab. (NRL), Washington, DC (United States)
Univ. of Amsterdam (Netherlands)

Axion dark matter (DM) may convert to radio-frequency electromagnetic radiation in the strong magnetic fields around neutron stars. The radio signature of such a process would be an ultranarrow spectral peak at a frequency determined by the mass of the axion particle. In this work, we analyze data we collected from the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in the L band and the Effelsberg 100-m Telescope in the $$\textit{L}$$ band and $$\textit{S}$$ band from a number of sources expected to produce bright signals of axion-photon conversion, including the Galactic center of the Milky Way and the nearby isolated neutron stars RX J0720.4-3125 and RX J0806.4-4123. We find no evidence for axion DM and are able to set constraints on the existence of axion DM in the highly motivated mass range between ~ 5 and 11 μ eV with the strongest constraints to date on axions in the ~10–11 μ eV range.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC); National Science Foundation (NSF); Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG); Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS); Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT); European Research Council (ERC)

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0019225

OSTI ID:: 1852944

Journal Information:: Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Issue: 17 Vol. 125; ISSN 0031-9007

Publisher:: American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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