Supernova 1987A constraints on sub-GeV dark sectors, millicharged particles, the QCD axion, and an axion-like particle

By Jae Hyeok Chang, R. Essig, Samuel D. McDermott. Journal of High Energy Physics, 2018

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A bstractWe consider the constraints from Supernova 1987A on particles with small couplings to the Standard Model. We discuss a model with a fermion coupled to a dark photon, with various mass relations in the dark sector; millicharged particles; dark-sector fermions with inelastic transitions; the hadronic QCD axion; and an axion-like particle that couples to Standard Model fermions with couplings proportional to their mass. In the fermion cases, we develop a new diagnostic for assessing when such a particle is trapped at large mixing angles. Our bounds for a fermion coupled to a dark photon constrain small couplings and masses ≲ 200 MeV, and do not decouple for low fermion masses. They exclude parameter space that is otherwise unconstrained by existing accelerator-based and direct-detection searches. In addition, our bounds are complementary to proposed laboratory searches for sub-GeV dark matter, and do not constrain several benchmark-model targets in parameter space for which the dark matter obtains the correct relic abundance from interactions with the Standard Model. For a millicharged particle, we exclude charges between 10−9–few×10−6 in units of the electron charge, also for masses ≲ 200 MeV; this excludes parameter space to higher millicharges and masses than previous bounds. For the QCD axion and an axion-like particle, we apply several updated nuclear physics calculations and include the energy dependence of the optical depth to accurately account for energy loss at large couplings. These corrections allow us to rule out a hadronic axion of mass between 0.1 and a few hundred eV, or equivalently to put a bound on the scale of Peccei-Quinn symmetry breaking between a few×104 and 108 GeV, closing the hadronic axion window. For an axion-like particle, our bounds disfavor decay constants between a few×105 GeV up to a few×108 GeV, for a mass ≲ 200 MeV. In all cases, our bounds differ from previous work by more than an order of magnitude across the entire parameter space. We also provide estimated systematic errors due to the uncertainties of the progenitor.

Subfields: Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3880278e2ab0faa08ed0cd44e275c4c6f1011da3

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Citations in the corpus

More axions from strings (2020, neutral): “We assume radiation domination in a spatially The existing experimental and observational bounds shown are from ADMX [61,62], earlier cavity experiments “UF/RBF” [63, 64], HAYSTACK [65], CAST [66], observations of horizontal branch starts “HB” [67], supernova 1987a “SN1987a” [68–70] (see however [71”
TASI Lectures on the Strong CP Problem and Axions (2018, background): “The expectation is that approximately O (1) number of strings is left in each Hubble volume at all times [100–106]. and The axions emitted as the strings merge straighten out are mostly emitted with very low energy, O ( H ), and have the potential to be dark matter [107–114]. an Current estimates ar”
Dark halos around neutron stars and gravitational waves (2018, background): “The upper bound on gB is in fact obtained by requiring that the total energy radiated due to the Bremsstrahlung reaction NN → NNφ from the PNS does not exceed ≈ 1053 ergs to be compatible with the neutrino signal observed from SN1987 [26, 41, 42].”
The Dark Photon (2020, background): “The physics of stellar evolution for horizontal branches, red giants, and white dwarves (RGWD (Vogel and Redondo, 2014)),together with supernovae (SN1987 (Chang et al., 2018)) provide bounds in the region of small masses (mχ ∼ 1 MeV).”
Muonic Boson Limits: Supernova Redux (2021, neutral): “In the recent literature on SN particle bounds, the SB procedure was critiqued and instead a “modified luminosity constraint” was formulated for the trapping limit [6, 69] and followed in subsequent papers [49].”
New experimental approaches in the search for axion-like particles (2018, methodology): “During the writing of this review, we were told of a further revision of the bound, which includes, among other improvements, a recent down-revision of the axion emissivity and loosening of the above constraint by a factor ∼ 5 [337].”
Early seeds of axion miniclusters (2018, background): “Axion models with values of fA 108 GeV are ruled out because many stellar systems would cool faster than observed by the emission of axions (see [6] and the recent revisions [7–10]).”