6 research outputs found
Signatures of Pseudoscalar Photon Mixing in CMB Radiation
We model the effect of photon and ultra-light pseudoscalar mixing on the
propagation of electromagnetic radiation through the extragalactic medium. The
medium is modelled as a large number of magnetic domains, uncorrelated with one
another. We obtain an analytic expression for the different Stokes parameters
in the limit of small mixing angle. The different Stokes parameters are found
to increase linearly with the number of domains. We also verify this result by
direct numerical simulations. We use this formalism to estimate the effect of
pseudoscalar-photon mixing on the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB)
polarization. We impose limits on the model parameters by the CMB observations.
We find that the currently allowed parameter range admits a CMB circular
polarization up to order .Comment: 17 pages, 5 figure
Alignments in quasar polarizations: pseudoscalar-photon mixing in the presence of correlated magnetic fields
We investigate the effects of pseudoscalar-photon mixing on electromagnetic
radiation in the presence of correlated extragalactic magnetic fields. We model
the Universe as a collection of magnetic domains and study the propagation of
radiation through them. This leads to correlations between Stokes parameters
over large scales and consistently explains the observed large-scale alignment
of quasar polarizations at different redshifts within the framework of the big
bang model.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, version published in PR
Constraints on the axion-electron coupling for solar axions produced by Compton process and bremsstrahlung
The search for solar axions produced by Compton () and bremsstrahlung-like () processes has
been performed. The axion flux in the both cases depends on the axion-electron
coupling constant. The resonant excitation of low-lying nuclear level of
was looked for: Tm Tm
Tm (8.41 keV). The Si(Li) detector and
Tm target installed inside the low-background setup were used to detect
8.41 keV -rays. As a result, a new model independent restriction on the
axion-electron and the axion-nucleon couplings was obtained:
. In model of hadronic
axion this restriction corresponds to the upper limit on the axion-electron
coupling and on the axion mass eV (90%
c.l.). The limits on axion mass are 105 eV and 1.3 keV for
DFSZ- and KSVZ-axion models, correspondingly (90% c.l.).Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure
Red giant bound on the axion-electron coupling reexamined
If axions or other low-mass pseudoscalars couple to electrons (``fine
structure constant'' ) they are emitted from red giant stars by the
Compton process and by bremsstrahlung .
We construct a simple analytic expression for the energy-loss rate for all
conditions relevant for a red giant and include axion losses in evolutionary
calculations from the main sequence to the helium flash. We find that
\alpha_a\lapprox0.5\mn(-26) or m_a\lapprox 9\,\meV/\cos^2\beta lest the red
giant core at helium ignition exceed its standard mass by more than
0.025\,\MM_\odot, in conflict with observational evidence. Our bound is the
most restrictive limit on , but it does not exclude the possibility
that axion emission contributes significantly to the cooling of ZZ~Ceti stars
such as G117--B15A for which the period decrease was recently measured.Comment: 11 pages, uuencoded and compressed postscript fil