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Search for Axions in Magnetic White Dwarf Polarization at Lick and Keck Observatories

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arxiv 2504.12377 v1 pith:BF7RHOMT submitted 2025-04-16 hep-ph astro-ph.HEastro-ph.SR

classification hep-phastro-ph.HEastro-ph.SR
keywords kecklickmagneticpolarizationsdsssearchaxionsdata
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal
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abstract

We present the most sensitive search to date for light axion-like particles with masses below a micro-eV, using spectropolarimetric data collected from the Lick and Keck Observatories. The conversion of optical photons emitted from the surface of a magnetic white dwarf (MWD) into axions in the strong magnetic field around the star induces a nearly wavelength-independent linear polarization in the observed starlight. We analyze the Stokes parameters $(U, Q, I)$ measured with the Kast spectrograph at the Lick Observatory toward the MWDs SDSS J033320+000720 and ZTF J190132+145807, and with the LRISp-ADC instrument at the Keck Observatory toward ZTF J190132+145807, SDSS J002129+150223, and SDSS J100356+053825 to search for this effect. The data show no evidence of axion-induced linear polarization, and we set world-leading constraints on the axion-photon coupling $|g_{a\gamma\gamma}| \lesssim 1.7 \times 10^{-12} \,\mathrm{GeV}^{-1}$ at the $95\%$ confidence level for masses $m_a \lesssim 2 \times 10^{-7}\,\mathrm{eV}$.

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Cited by 6 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score. Full citation record

  1. Time-Domain Axion Searches with Magnetic White Dwarfs

    astro-ph.HE 2026-07 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    The apparent axion-photon conversion signal in PG 1015+014 TESS data is absorbed by the second harmonic of the star's intrinsic light curve, yielding no evidence for axions and a conservative coupling limit.

  2. Coherent collective response in many-qubit systems for dark matter detection

    hep-ph 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 6.0 of 10

    Ramsey interferometry on large arrays of unentangled qubits achieves dark-matter sensitivity scaling as 1/sqrt(N), enabling projected bounds competitive with or better than existing limits for N greater than or equal ...

  3. Axiverse Lampposts

    hep-ph 2026-02 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    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.

  4. Axion lines from nuclear de-excitations in galactic stellar populations

    hep-ph 2025-09 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    No 14.4 keV axion line from 57Fe de-excitations is seen by NuSTAR toward M87, M82, M31, or the Galactic Center, yielding |g_ann x g_aγγ| < 1.1e-22 GeV^-1 for m_a < 1e-10 eV.

  5. Echoes in multi-ALP scenarios

    hep-ph 2025-07 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

    In coherent multi-ALP models, axion echo power scales linearly with the number of ALPs, while incoherent (random-phase) models yield signals no stronger than the single-ALP case.

  6. Circular polarization effects induced by photon-axion mixing in astrophysical environments

    astro-ph.HE 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 4.0 of 10

    The paper derives analytic circular-polarization signals from photon-axion mixing and uses the blazar S4 0954+65 optical circular-polarization limit to bound g_aγγ around 10^-12 to 10^-11 GeV^-1 for ultralight axion masses.

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