• DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.071102
• Corpus ID: 233407447

No Evidence for Axions from Chandra Observation of the Magnetic White Dwarf RE J0317-853.

@article{Dessert2022NoEF,
  title={No Evidence for Axions from Chandra Observation of the Magnetic White Dwarf RE J0317-853.},
  author={Christopher Dessert and Andrew J. Long and Benjamin R. Safdi},
  journal={Physical review letters},
  year={2022},
  volume={128 7},
  pages={
          071102
        }
}

• Christopher Dessert, A. J. Long, B. Safdi
• Published 26 April 2021
• Physics
• Physical review letters

Axions with couplings g_{aγγ}∼few×10^{-11}  GeV^{-1} to electromagnetism may resolve a number of astrophysical anomalies, such as unexpected ∼TeV transparency, anomalous stellar cooling, and x-ray excesses from nearby neutron stars. We show, however, that such axions are severely constrained by the nonobservation of x rays from the magnetic white dwarf (MWD) RE J0317-853 using ∼40  ks of data acquired from a dedicated observation with the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Axions may be produced in the core of the MWD through electron bremsstrahlung and then convert to x rays in the magnetosphere. The nonobservation of x rays constrains the axion-photon coupling to g_{aγγ}≲5.5×10^{-13}sqrt[C_{aγγ}/C_{aee}]  GeV^{-1} at 95% confidence for axion masses m_{a}≲5×10^{-6}  eV, with C_{aee} and C_{aγγ} the dimensionless coupling constants to electrons and photons. Considering that C_{aee} is generated from the renormalization group, our results robustly disfavor g_{aγγ}≳4.4×10^{-11}  GeV^{-1} even for models with no ultraviolet contribution to C_{aee}.