We derive the axion-nucleon interaction Lagrangian in heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory up to next-to-next-to-leading order. The effective axion-nucleon coupling is calculated to a few percent accuracy.
The QCD axion is a hypothetical particle motivated by the Strong CP problem of particle physics. One of the primary ways in which its existence can be inferred is via its function as an additional cooling channel in stars, with some of the strongest constraints coming from the supernova observation SN1987A. Multimessenger observations of binary neutron star mergers (such as those of GW170817, AT2017gfo, and GRB170817A) may provide another scenario in which such constraints could be obtained. In particular, the axion could potentially alter the lifetime, the ejection of material, and the emitte…
We consider axions coupled to nucleons and photons only through the nucleon electric-dipole moment (EDM) portal. This coupling is a model-independent feature of QCD axions, which solve the strong CP problem, and might arise as well in more general axion-like particle setups. We revise the supernova (SN) axion emission induced by the nucleon EDM coupling and refine accordingly the SN 1987A bound. Furthermore, we calculate the axion flux from a future Galactic SN and show that it might produce a peculiar and potentially detectable gamma-ray signal in a large underground neutrino detector such as…
Neutrino and axion production in neutron stars occurs mainly as bremsstrahlung from nucleon-nucleon (NN) scattering. The energy radiated via neutrinos or axions is typically very small compared to other scales in the two-nucleon system. The rate of emission of such "soft" radiation is directly related to the on-shell NN amplitude, and thereby to the NN experimental data. This facilitates the model-independent calculation of the neutrino and axion radiation rates which is presented here. We find that the resultant rates are a factor of four below earlier estimates based on a one-pion-exchange N…
Neutron stars generally cools off by the emission of gamma rays and neutrinos. But axions can also be produced inside a neutron star by the process of nucleon-nucleon axion bremsstrahlung. The escape of these axions adds to the cooling process of neutron star. We explore the nature of cooling of neutron stars including the axion emission and compare our result with the scenario when the neutron star is cooled by only the emission of gamma rays and neutrinos. In our calculations we consider both the degenerate and non-degenerate limits for such axion energy loss rate and the resulting variation…
We consider the problem of axion production by bremsstrahlung emission in a nuclear medium. The usual assumption of a massless axion is replaced by more general hypotheses, so that we can describe the emission process for axions with mass up to a few MeV. We point out that in certain physical situations the contribution from non-zero mass is non-negligible. In particular, in the mechanism for the production of Gamma Ray Bursts via emission of heavy axions the axion mass m_a ~ 1MeV is comparable with the temperature of the nuclear medium and thus can not be disregarded. Looking at our results w…
Supernovae and cooling neutron stars have long been used to constrain the properties of axions, such as their mass and interactions with nucleons and other Standard Model particles. We investigate the prospects of using neutron star mergers as a similar location where axions can be probed in the future. We examine the impact axions would have on mergers, considering both the possibility that they free-stream through the dense nuclear matter and the case where they are trapped. We calculate the mean free path of axions in merger conditions, and find that they would free-stream through the merge…
We examine the axion emission from supernovae with a complete set of relevant axion couplings including the axion-pion-nucleon contact interaction which was ignored in the previous studies. Two processes are affected by the axion-pion-nucleon contact interaction, $π^-+p \rightarrow n + a$ and $n+p\rightarrow n+p+a$, and these processes can be the dominant source of axions for some region in the axion parameter space or in astrophysical conditions encountered inside supernovae. We find that the contact interaction can enhance the axion emissivity of $π^-+p \rightarrow n + a$ by a factor of $2-4…
In the past, the axion-nucleon coupling has been calculated in the framework of SU(2) heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory up to third order in the chiral power counting. Here, we extend these earlier studies to the case of heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory with SU(3) flavor symmetry and derive the axion coupling to the full SU(3) baryon octet, showing that the axion also significantly couples to hyperons. As studies on dense nuclear matter suggest the possible existence of hyperons in stellar objects such as neutron stars, our results should have phenomenological implications related…
NuSTAR as an Axion Helioscope: probing axion-nucleon and axion-electron couplings
Università di Torino(都灵大学);Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Torino(意大利国家核物理研究所都灵分部);Technische Universität Dortmund(多特蒙德工业大学);University of Zaragoza(萨拉戈萨大学);Leinweber Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Berkeley(加州大学伯克利分校莱因韦伯理论物理研究所);Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory(劳伦斯伯克利国家实验室)
In the hot and dense medium of a supernova (SN) core, the nucleon spins fluctuate so fast that the axial-vector neutrino opacity and the axion emissivity are expected to be significantly modified. Axions with $m_a\alt10^{-2}\,{\rm eV}$ are not excluded by SN~1987A. A substantial transfer of energy in neutrino-nucleon ($νN$) collisions is enabled which may alter the spectra of SN neutrinos relative to calculations where energy-conserving $νN$ collisions had been assumed near the neutrinosphere.
A finite axion-nucleon coupling, nearly unavoidable for QCD axions, leads to the production of axions via the thermal excitation and subsequent de-excitation of Fe-57 isotopes in the sun. We revise the solar bound on this flux adopting the up to date emission rate, and investigate the sensitivity of the proposed International Axion Observatory IAXO and its intermediate stage BabyIAXO to detect these axions. We compare different realistic experimental options and discuss the model dependence of the signal. Already BabyIAXO has sensitivity far beyond previous solar axion searches via the nucleon…
We obtain improved constraints on the coupling constants of axion-like particles to nucleons from a recently performed Casimir-less experiment. For this purpose, the differential force between a Au-coated sphere and either Au or Si sectors of a rotating disc, arising due to two-axion exchange, is calculated. Over a wide region of axion masses from 1.7 meV to 0.9 eV the obtained constraints are stronger up to a factor of 60 than the previously known ones following from the Cavendish-type experiment and measurements of the effective Casimir pressure.
We investigate the potential of type II supernovae (SNe) to constrain axion-like particles (ALPs) coupled simultaneously to nucleons and electrons. ALPs coupled to nucleons can be efficiently produced in the SN core via nucleon-nucleon bremsstrahlung and, for a wide range of parameters, leave the SN unhindered, producing a large ALP flux. For masses exceeding 1 MeV, these ALPs would decay into electron-positron pairs, generating a positron flux. In the case of Galactic SNe, the annihilation of the created positrons with the electrons present in the Galaxy would contribute to the 511 keV annihi…
The most efficient axion production mechanism in a supernova (SN) core is the nucleon-nucleon bremsstrahlung. This process has been often modeled at the level of the vacuum one-pion exchange (OPE) approximation. Starting from this naive recipe, we revise the calculation including systematically different effects, namely a non-vanishing mass for the exchanged pion, the contribution from the two-pions exchange, effective in-medium nucleon masses and multiple nucleon scatterings. Moreover, we allow for an arbitrary degree of nucleon degeneracy. A self consistent treatment of the axion emission ra…
We propose to search for axion dark matter via the oscillating electric dipole moments that axions induce in atoms and molecules. These moments are produced through the intrinsic oscillating electric dipole moments of nucleons and through the $P,T$-violating nucleon-nucleon interaction mediated by pion exchange, both of which arise due to the axion-gluon coupling, and also directly through the axion-electron interaction. Axion dark matter may also be sought for through the spin-precession effects that axions produce by directly coupling to fermion spins.
We obtain stronger laboratory constraints on the coupling constants of axion-like particles to nucleons from measurements of the normal and lateral Casimir forces between sinusoidally corrugated surfaces of a sphere and a plate. For this purpose, the normal and lateral additional force arising in the experimental configurations due to two-axion exchange between protons and neutrons are calculated. Our constraints following from measurements of the normal and lateral Casimir forces are stronger than the laboratory constraints reported so far for masses of axion-like particles larger than 11eV a…
Among the possible CP-odd couplings of the axion to ordinary matter, the most relevant ones for phenomenology are the Yukawa couplings to nucleons. We analyze such non-derivative couplings within three different approaches: standard effective field theory, the Skyrme model and holographic QCD. In all the cases, the couplings can be related to the CP-odd non-derivative couplings to nucleons of the low-lying mesons and the $η'$. Using the effective field theory approach we discuss how to derive the expressions for the CP-odd interaction terms as functions of the parameters of the effective Lagra…
We show that the interaction of an axion field, or in general a pseudoscalar field, with the axial-vector current generated by an electron through a derivative-type coupling can give rise to a time-dependent mixing of opposite-parity states in atomic and molecular systems. Likewise, the analogous interaction of an axion field with the axial-vector current generated by a nucleon can give rise to time-dependent mixing of opposite-parity states in nuclear systems. This mixing can induce oscillating electric dipole moments, oscillating parity non-conservation effects and oscillating anapole moment…
We show that the commonly adopted hot dark matter (HDM) bound on the axion mass $m_a \lesssim$ 1 eV is not reliable, since it is obtained by extrapolating the chiral expansion in a region where the effective field theory breaks down. This is explicitly shown via the calculation of the axion-pion thermalization rate at the next-to-leading order in chiral perturbation theory. We finally advocate a strategy for a sound extraction of the axion HDM bound via lattice QCD techniques.
Probing Axion Nucleon Coupling with Optomechanical Frequency Shift Measurements
Key Laboratory of Artificial Structures and Quantum Control (Ministry of Education), School of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University(上海交大物理与天文学院人工结构与量子控制教育部重点实验室)
Constraints on the Yukawa-type corrections to Newton's gravitational law and on the coupling constant of axionlike particles to nucleons obtained from different laboratory experiments are reviewed and compared. The constraints on non-Newtonian gravity under discussion cover the wide interaction range from nanometers to millimeters and follow from the experiments on neutron scattering, measuring the Casimir force and Cavendish-type experiments. The constraints on the axion-to-nucleon coupling constant following from the magnetometer measurements, Cavendish-type experiments, Casimir physics, and…
In a previous work, we analyzed collapsing axion stars using the low-energy instanton potential, showing that the total energy is always bounded and that collapsing axion stars do not form black holes. In this paper, we provide a proof that the conclusions are unchanged when using instead the more general chiral potential for QCD axions.
We present a mechanism wherein the QCD axion coupling to nucleons, photons, or electrons, can be enhanced selectively without increasing the axion mass. We focus in particular on the axion-nucleon couplings, that are generally considered to be largely model-independent, and we show how nucleophilic axion models can be constructed. We discuss the implications of a nucleophilic axion for astrophysics, cosmology and laboratory searches. We present a model with enhanced axion couplings to nucleons and photons that can provide an excellent fit to the anomalous emission of hard X-rays recently obser…
The quantum chromodynamics (QCD) axion may modify the cooling rates of neutron stars (NSs). The axions are produced within the NS cores from nucleon bremsstrahlung and, when the nucleons are in superfluid states, Cooper pair breaking and formation processes. We show that four of the nearby isolated Magnificent Seven NSs along with PSR J0659 are prime candidates for axion cooling studies because they are coeval, with ages of a few hundred thousand years known from kinematic considerations, and they have well-measured surface luminosities. We compare these data to dedicated NS cooling simulation…
The axion particle may or may not exist, but the axion field can be used, as shown here, in an explicitly local formulation of a chiral U(1) gauge theory with both classical and quantum gauge invariance. Nonabelian analogues of axion fields, which have recently been introduced, can be used, together with their special symmetries, in a similar construction of nonabelian chiral gauge theories. As in known cases, the gauge symmetry is broken and the gauge boson acquires a mass by swallowing the axions which are therefore not physical in this construction.
Axions or similar hypothetical pseudoscalar bosons may have a small CP-violating scalar Yukawa interaction g_s(N) with nucleons, causing macroscopic monopole-dipole forces. Torsion-balance experiments constrain g_p(e) g_s(N), whereas g_p(N) g_s(N) is constrained by the depolarization rate of ultra-cold neutrons or spin-polarized nuclei. However, the pseudoscalar couplings g_p(e) and g_p(N) are strongly constrained by stellar energy-loss arguments and g_s(N) by searches for anomalous monopole-monopole forces, together providing the most restrictive limits on g_p(e) g_s(N) and g_p(N) g_s(N). The…
Stronger constraints on the pseudoscalar coupling constants of an axion to a proton and a neutron are obtained from an indirect measurement of the effective Casimir pressure between two Au-coated plates by means of micromechanical torsional oscillator. For this purpose, the additional effective pressure due to two-axion exchange is calculated. The role of boundary effects and the validity region of the proximity force approximation in application to forces of axion origin are determined. The obtained constraints are up to factors of 380 and 3.15 stronger than those found recently from other la…
We present a consistent implementation of weak decays involving an axion or axion-like particle in the context of an effective chiral Lagrangian. We argue that previous treatments of such processes have used an incorrect representation of the flavor-changing quark currents in the chiral theory. As an application, we derive model-independent results for the decays $K^-\toπ^- a$ and $π^-\to e^-\barν_e a$ at leading order in the chiral expansion and for arbitrary axion couplings and mass. In particular, we find that the $K^-\toπ^- a$ branching ratio is almost 40 times larger than previously estim…
In the presence of P,T-violating interactions, the exchange of axion-like particles between electrons and nucleons in atoms and molecules induces electric dipole moments (EDMs) of atoms and molecules. We perform calculations of such axion-exchange-induced atomic EDMs using the relativistic Hartree-Fock-Dirac method including electron core polarisation (RPA) corrections. We present analytical estimates to explain the dependence of these induced atomic EDMs on the axion mass and atomic parameters. From the experimental bounds on the EDMs of atoms and molecules, including $^{133}$Cs, $^{205}$Tl, …
In this work we compute the axion mass and, from this (exploiting a well-known relation), we also derive an expression for the QCD topological susceptibility in the finite-temperature case, both below and above the chiral phase transition at $T_c$, making use of a chiral effective Lagrangian model which includes the axion, the scalar and pseudoscalar mesons and implements the $U(1)$ axial anomaly of the fundamental theory. We also provide a numerical estimate of the topological susceptibility at $T=0$ (in the physical case of three light quark flavors) and discuss the question of the temperatu…
Modulo the scale of spontaneous breaking of Peccei-Quinn symmetry, the axion mass $m_a(T)$ is given by the QCD topological susceptibility $χ(T)$ at all temperatures $T$. From an approach tying the $U_A(1)$ and chiral symmetry breaking and getting good $T$-dependence of $η$ and $η$ mesons, we get $χ(T)$ for an effective Dyson-Schwinger model of nonperturbative QCD. Comparison with lattice results for $χ(T)$, and thus also for $m_a(T)$, shows good agreement for temperatures ranging from zero up to the double of the chiral restoration temperature $T_c$.
We investigate the physical consequences of the survival of the effects of the U(1)_A anomaly in the chiral symmetric phase of QCD, and show that the free energy density is a singular function of the quark mass m, in the chiral limit, and that the $σ$ and $\barπ$ susceptibilities diverge in this limit at any $T\ge T_c$. We also show that the difference between the $\barπ$ and $\barδ$ susceptibilities diverges in the chiral limit at any $T\ge T_c$, a result which seems to be excluded by recent results of Tomiya et al. from numerical simulations of two-flavor QCD. We also discuss on the generali…
Using heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory we study the leading chiral corrections to the complete set of nucleon generalized parton distributions (GPDs). We compute the leading quark mass and momentum transfer dependence of the moments of nucleon GPDs through the nucleon off-forward twist-2 matrix elements. These results are then applied to get insight on the GPDs and their impact parameter space distributions.
We provide an introduction to the basic concepts of chiral perturbation theory and discuss some recent developments in the manifestly Lorentz-invariant formulation of the one-nucleon sector.
We study dynamical instability and chiral symmetry breaking in three dimensional Weyl semimetals, which turns Weyl semimetals into "axion insulators". Charge density waves (CDW) is found to be the natural consequence of the chiral symmetry breaking. The phase mode of this charge density wave state is identified as the axion, which couples to electromagnetic field in the topological $θ{\bf E}\cdot{\bf B}$ term. One of our main results is that the "axion strings" can be realized as the (screw or edge) dislocations in the charge density wave, which provides a simple physical picture for the elusi…
We compute the CP-violating (CPV) scalar axion coupling to nucleons in the framework of baryon chiral perturbation theory and we apply the results to the case of left-right symmetry. The correlated constraints with other CPV observables show that the predicted axion nucleon coupling is within the reach of present axion-mediated force experiments for $M_{W_R}$ up to $1000$ TeV.
We adopt a covariant version of the naive dimensional analysis and construct the chiral two-nucleon contact Lagrangian constrained by Lorentz, parity, charge conjugation, hermitian conjugation, and chiral symmetries. We show that at $\mathcal{O}(q^0)$, $\mathcal{O}(q^2)$, $\mathcal{O}(q^4)$, where $q$ denotes a generic small quantity, there are 4, 13, and 23 terms, respectively. We find that by performing $1/m_N$ expansions, the covariant Lagrangian reduces to the conventional non-relativistic one, which includes 2, 7, and 15 terms at each corresponding order.
In current lattice simulations of nucleon properties, the up and down quark masses are significantly larger than their physical values, while the strange quark can be included in simulations with its physical mass. When the up and down quark masses are much smaller than the strange-quark mass the chiral extrapolation of strange-quark matrix elements in the nucleon from the lattice up and down quark masses to their physical values can be performed with two-flavor chiral perturbation theory, thereby avoiding the slow convergence problem of the three-flavor chiral expansion. We explore the chiral…
The temperature ($T$) dependence of the axion mass is predicted for $T$'s up to $\sim 2.3 \times$ the chiral restoration temperature of QCD. The axion is related to the $U_A(1)$ anomaly. The squared axion mass $m_a(T)^2$ is, modulo the presently undetermined scale of spontaneous breaking of Peccei-Quinn symmetry $f_a$ (squared), equal to QCD topological susceptibility $χ(T)$ for all $T$. We obtain $χ(T)$ by using quark condensates calculated in two effective Dyson-Schwinger models of nonperturbative QCD. They exhibit the correct chiral behavior, including the dynamical breaking of chiral symme…
A number of papers recently have used fourth-order chiral perturbation theory to extrapolate lattice data for the nucleon mass; the process seems surprisingly successful even for large pion masses. This paper shows that the inclusion of the fifth-order terms spoils the agreement.
We extend the standard second order effective chiral Lagrangian of pions and nucleons by considering the coupling to an external gravitational field. As an application we calculate one-loop corrections to the one-nucleon matrix element of the energy-momentum tensor to fourth order in chiral counting, and next-to-leading order tree-level amplitude of the pion-production in an external gravitational field. We discuss the relation of the obtained results to experimentally measurable observables. Our expressions for the chiral corrections to the nucleon gravitational form factors differ from those…
We compute the effect of the chiral phase transition of QCD on the axion mass and self-coupling; the coupling of the axion to the quarks at finite temperature is described within the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model. We find that the axion mass decreases with temperature, following the response of the topological susceptibility, in agreement with previous results obtained within chiral perturbation theory at low and intermediate temperatures. As expected, the comparison with lattice data shows that chiral perturbation theory fails to reproduce the topological susceptibility around the chiral critical …
Constraining Yukawa-type interaction and coupling constant of axionlike particles to nucleons from recent measurement of the Casimir-Polder interaction
The nucleon is naturally viewed as a bipartite system of valence spin -- defined by its non-vanishing chiral charge -- and non-valence or sea spin. The sea spin can be traced over to give a reduced density matrix, and it is shown that the resulting entanglement entropy acts as an order parameter of chiral symmetry breaking in the nucleon. In the large-$N_c$ limit, the entanglement entropy vanishes and the valence spin accounts for all of the nucleon spin, while in the limit of maximal entanglement entropy, the nucleon loses memory of the valence spin and consequently has spin dominated by the …
We suggest the new feature of primordial gravitational waves sourced by the axion-gauge couplings, whose forms are motivated by the dimensional reduction of the form field in the string theory. In our inflationary model, as an inflaton we adopt two types of axion, dubbed the model-independent axion and the model-dependent axion, which couple with two gauge groups with different sign combination each other. Due to these forms both polarization modes of gauge fields are amplified and enhance both helicies of tensor modes during inflation. We point out the possibility that a primordial blue-tilte…
We perform general relativistic one-dimensional supernova (SN) simulations to identify observable signatures of enhanced axion emission from the pion-induced reaction $π^- + p \rightarrow n + a$ inside a newly born protoneutron star (PNS).We focus on the early evolution after the onset of the supernova explosion to predict the temporal and spectral features of the neutrino and axion emission during the first 10 s. Pions are included as explicit new degrees of freedom in hot and dense matter. Their thermal population and their role in axion production are both determined consistently to include…
Detecting axionic dark matter induced electron or nucleon oscillating electric dipole moment (OEDM) has become a new way for dark matter searches. We re-examine such axion-spin couplings in external electromagnetic fields. We point out that axion-photon interaction induces an electron spin effective coupling, which is different from an OEDM. In particular, the axion-spin effective coupling is directly related to magnetic field rather than electric field. For axion-electron or axion-nucleon couplings, an OEDM of fermion is introduced, whose effect in ultralight axion cases depends on whether ax…