Updated bounds on axion-like particles from X-ray observations

Schallmoser, Simon; Krippendorf, Sven; Chadha-Day, Francesca; Weller, Jochen

Abstract

In this work we revisit five different point sources within or behind galaxy clusters in order to constrain the coupling constant between axion-like particles (ALPs) and photons. We use three distinct machine learning (ML) techniques and compare our results with a standard χ2 analysis. For the first time we apply approximate Bayesian computation to searches for ALPs and find consistently good performance across ML classifiers. Further, we apply more realistic 3D magnetic field simulations of galaxy clusters and compare our results with previously used 1D simulations. We find constraints on the ALP-photon coupling at the level of state-of-the-art bounds with gaγγ ≲ 0.6 × 10−12 GeV−1, hence improving on previous constraints obtained from the same observations.

Citation

Schallmoser, S., Krippendorf, S., Chadha-Day, F., & Weller, J. (2022). Updated bounds on axion-like particles from X-ray observations. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 514(1), 329-341. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac1224

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 27, 2022
• Online Publication Date: May 3, 2022
• Publication Date: 2022-07
• Deposit Date: May 19, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: May 23, 2022
• Journal: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
• Print ISSN: 0035-8711
• Electronic ISSN: 1365-2966
• Publisher: Royal Astronomical Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 514
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 329-341
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac1224
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1206905
• Related Public URLs: https://arxiv.org/abs/2108.04827