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Revisiting Constraints on Resonant Axion-Photon Conversions from CMB Spectral Distortions

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arxiv 2411.13701 v1 pith:4ZN3NKDN submitted 2024-11-20 astro-ph.CO

Revisiting Constraints on Resonant Axion-Photon Conversions from CMB Spectral Distortions

classification astro-ph.CO
keywords axionsconversionsdistortionphotonsresonantspectralaxionaxion-photon
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved
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Axions and axion-like particles (ALPs) remain highly motivated extensions to the standard model due to their ability to address open questions such as the relic abundance of dark matter and the strong CP problem. Axions are also capable of undergoing a resonant mixing with photons when the masses of the two fields are roughly equal, producing a wide array of phenomenological consequences. Here, we revisit constraints coming from conversions of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) into axions, which will induce a distortion to the frequency spectrum of the background photons. We introduce a more detailed description for the modeling of the plasma mass of the photon, showcasing how the inclusion of Helium recombination can alter the conversion probability for photons in the Wien tail. Our results include an updated analytic framework, which allows us to define the precise spectral shape of the axion distortion, as well as a numeric component which utilized the code \texttt{CosmoTherm} to fully characterize the distortion, providing a slight increase in the constraining power over the analytics. We also treat for the first time the large-distortion regime for resonant axion-photon conversions. Under the assumption of large-scale primordial magnetic fields near the limit obtained from CMB observations, we find that spectral distortions can probe previously unexplored regions of the axion parameter space.

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Cited by 5 Pith papers

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    Axions produced in supernovae generate a diffuse gamma-ray signal through conversion in magnetic fields, yielding competitive constraints on the axion-photon coupling from COMPTEL, EGRET, and Fermi-LAT data plus forec...

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    In a hierarchical multi-axion theory with random couplings, axion field ranges shrink with 1/sqrt(N), generic axion–SM couplings are suppressed, but the QCD axion's coupling is unsuppressed.

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    astro-ph.CO 2025-10 unverdicted novelty 6.0

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