Speaker
Liangliang Su
(Nanjing Normal University)
Description
Neutron stars provide ideal astrophysical laboratories for probing new physics beyond the Standard Model. If axions exist, photons can develop linear polarization during photon-axion conversion in the magnetic field of a neutron star. We find that the plasma in the neutron star magnetosphere could dramatically enhance the polarization through the resonant conversion effect. With the polarization measurements from PSR B0531+21, PSR B0656+14, and 4U 0142+61, we derive new strong constraints on the axion-photon coupling in a broad axion mass range $10^{-11}\lesssim m_a \lesssim 10^{-3}$ eV.
Primary author
Liangliang Su
(Nanjing Normal University)
Co-authors
Lei Wu
(Nanjing Normal University)
Ningqiang Song
(Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences)
