Dessert Christopher, Foster Joshua W, Safdi Benjamin R
Leinweber Center for Theoretical Physics, Department of Physics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA.
Berkeley Center for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
Phys Rev Lett. 2020 Dec 31;125(26):261102. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.261102.
Axions may be produced in abundance inside stellar cores and then convert into observable x rays in the Galactic magnetic fields. We focus on the Quintuplet and Westerlund 1 super star clusters, which host large numbers of hot, young stars including Wolf-Rayet stars; these stars produce axions efficiently through the axion-photon coupling. We use Galactic magnetic field models to calculate the expected x-ray flux locally from axions emitted from these clusters. We then combine the axion model predictions with archival Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) data from 10-80 keV to search for evidence of axions. We find no significant evidence for axions and constrain the axion-photon coupling g_{aγγ}≲3.6×10^{-12} GeV^{-1} for masses m_{a}≲5×10^{-11} eV at 95% confidence.
轴子可能在恒星核心大量产生，然后在银河磁场中转化为可观测的X射线。我们聚焦于五合星团和韦斯特伦德1号超级星团，它们包含大量炽热的年轻恒星，包括沃尔夫-拉叶星；这些恒星通过轴子-光子耦合有效地产生轴子。我们使用银河磁场模型来计算从这些星团发射出的轴子在当地预期的X射线通量。然后，我们将轴子模型预测结果与来自核光谱望远镜阵列（NuSTAR）的10 - 80千电子伏特的存档数据相结合，以寻找轴子存在的证据。我们没有发现轴子的显著证据，并在95%置信度下对质量mₐ≲5×10⁻¹¹电子伏特的轴子-光子耦合gₐγγ≲3.6×10⁻¹² GeV⁻¹进行了限制。
