Evidence for a new light spin-zero boson from cosmological gamma-ray propagation?

By A. Angelis, M. Roncadelli, O. Mansutti. 2007

250 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Recent findings by imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes indicate a large transparency of the Universe to gamma rays, which can be hardly explained within the current models of extragalactic background light. We show that the observed transparency is naturally produced by an oscillation mechanism--which can occur inside intergalactic magnetic fields--whereby a photon can become a new spin-zero boson with mass m<<10{sup -10} eV. Because the latter particle travels unimpeded throughout the Universe, photons can reach the observer even if the distance from the source considerably exceeds their mean free path. We compute the expected flux of gamma rays from blazar 3C279 at different energies. Our predictions can be tested in the near future by the gamma-ray telescopes H.E.S.S., MAGIC, CANGAROO, and VERITAS. Moreover, our result provides an important observational test for models of dark energy wherein quintessence is coupled to the photon through an effective dimension-five operator.

Subfields: Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6d4b04910ef2d541e3c5c3efc5df05365a7f5d4f

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Citations in the corpus

2FHL: THE SECOND CATALOG OF HARD FERMI-LAT SOURCES (2015, background): “These photons are especially interesting for testing alternative photon-propagation scenarios such as secondary cascades (Essey & Kusenko 2010) and axion-like particles (e.g.,de Angelis et al. 2007; SánchezConde et al. 2009; Domínguez et al. 2011a; Horns & Meyer 2012).”
A new interpretation of the gamma-ray observations of distant active galactic nuclei (2009, background): “Among other proposed explanations, it was suggested that photons may convert into some hypothetical axion-like particles that convert back into photons in the galactic magnetic fields [9, 10], or that Lorentz invariance violation may be the reason for the lack of absorption [11].”
3FHL: The Third Catalog of Hard Fermi-LAT Sources (2017, background): “These photons permit testing EBL models and evaluating potential changes in the optical depth due to other more exotic scenarios (e.g., de Angelis et al. 2007; Sánchez-Conde et al. 2009; Essey & Kusenko 2010; Domínguez et al. 2011b; Horns & Meyer 2012).”
The type IIB string axiverse and its low-energy phenomenology (2012, background): “tantalising astrophysical hints, which together point to a light ALP with couplings and mass [7–12]:”
Exploring the Role of Axions and Other WISPs in the Dark Universe (2012, unknown): “10 −9 eV, ALP, which couples to two photons with strength [62, 63, 64, 65], giγ ∼ 10 GeV ⇒ fai/Ciγ ∼ 10(8) GeV.”
THE EXTRAGALACTIC BACKGROUND LIGHT, THE HUBBLE CONSTANT, AND ANOMALIES: CONCLUSIONS FROM 20 YEARS OF TeV GAMMA-RAY OBSERVATIONS (2015, background): “…have been studied for the initial conversion, be it within the magnetic field of the emission region, in the vicinity of the source (host, jet galaxy, cluster) or in the intergalactic medium (see e.g., de Angelis et al. 2007; Hooper & Serpico 2007; Sánchez-Conde et al. 2009; Tavecchio et al. 2012).”
Dark matter and fundamental physics with the Cherenkov Telescope Array (2012, methodology): “ [137], but it could also have important implications for astronomical observations. For example, photon/ALP mixing could distort the spectra of gamma-raysources, such as Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) [138, 139, 140, 141] or galactic sources, in the TeV range [142]. The photon/ALP mixing eﬀect for di”