Center for Theoretical Physics of the Universe (CTPU-PTC)

Searching for new physics with X-rays from compact stars

by Andrew Long (Rice University)

Asia/Seoul
zoom meeting

zoom meeting

Description
Since axions couple extremely weakly to regular matter, it makes them challenging to probe in the laboratory. However, axions should be produced in the dense environments of compact stars. Stellar axion emission provides an additional cooling channel that leads to well-known constraints on the axion’s couplings to matter. These constraints are indirect, and although compact stars are predicted to “glow” in axions, this radiation is invisible to us. In this talk I will discuss how the axion radiation is converted into X-ray emission in the strong magnetic field that surrounds many compact stars, thereby providing a new strategy for probing axions through X-ray observations of white dwarfs and neutron stars.
Slides
Video