Constraints on Axion-like Particles from X-Ray Observations of NGC1275

Abstract

Axion-like particles (ALPs) can induce localized oscillatory modulations in the spectra of photon sources passing through astrophysical magnetic fields. Ultra-deep Chandra observations of the Perseus cluster contain over $5\times {10}^{5}$ counts from the active galactic nucleus (AGN) of the central cluster galaxy NGC1275 and represent a data set of extraordinary quality for ALP searches. We use this data set to search for X-ray spectral irregularities from the AGN. The absence of irregularities at the ${ \mathcal O }(30 \% )$ level allows us to place leading constraints on the ALP-photon mixing parameter {g}_{a\gamma \gamma }\lesssim 1.4\mbox{--}4.0\times {10}^{-12}\,{\mathrm{GeV}}^{-1} for ${m}_{a}\lesssim {10}^{-12}\,\mathrm{eV}$, depending on assumptions on the magnetic field realization along the line of sight.European Research Counci