Axion-like particles (ALPs), predicted in theories beyond the Standard Model, can have observational effects on the transparency of the Universe to $γ$ rays in the presence of magnetic fields. In this work, we search for effects compatible with the existence of ALPs with 80 months of data from the ${\it Fermi}$ Large Area Telescope, by comparing the distributions of observed highest energy photons from sources beyond redshifts of z $\geq$ 0.1 with theoretical predictions in the presence of ALPs. We find no evidence for an increased $γ$-ray transparency due to ALPs and therefore we set limits on the ALPs parameters assuming a value of the intergalactic magnetic field strength of 1 nG. Photon-ALP couplings above $10^{-11}$ GeV$^{-1}$ are excluded for ALP masses $m_{a}$ $\lesssim3.0$ neV. These limits exclude a region of the parameter space not covered by other $γ$-ray telescopes and are compatible with constraints imposed by other experiments.
Axionlike particles (ALPs) could mix with photons in the presence of astrophysical magnetic fields. Searching for this effect in gamma-ray observations of blazars has provided some of the strongest constraints on ALP parameter space so far. Previously, photon-photon dispersion of gamma-rays off of the CMB has been shown to be important for these calculations, and is universally included in ALP-photon mixing models. Here, we assess the effects of dispersion off of other photon fields within the blazar (produced by the accretion disk, the broad line region, the dust torus, starlight, and the syn…
Blazar Constraints on Axions through New Spectral Modulation Searches in 1ES 1959+650 & B2 1811+31
Università di Bologna（博洛尼亚大学）；INFN, Sezione di Bologna（意大利国家核物理研究所博洛尼部分所）；University of California, Berkeley（加州大学伯克利分校）；Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory（劳伦斯伯克利国家实验室）
Many theories beyond the Standard Model of particle physics predict the existence of axionlike particles (ALPs) that mix with photons in the presence of a magnetic field. One prominent indirect method of searching for ALPs is to look for irregularities in blazar gamma-ray spectra caused by ALP-photon mixing in astrophysical magnetic fields. This requires the modelling of magnetic fields between Earth and the blazar. So far, only very simple models for the magnetic field in the blazar jet have been used. Here we investigate the effects of more complicated jet magnetic field configurations on th…
The light emitted by stars and accreting compact objects through the history of the Universe is encoded in the intensity of the extragalactic background light (EBL). Knowledge of the EBL is important to understand the nature of star formation and galaxy evolution, but direct measurements of the EBL are lim- ited by Galactic and other foreground emissions. Here we report an absorption feature seen in the combined spectra of a sample of gamma-ray blazars out to a redshift of z$\sim$1.6. This feature is caused by attenuation of gamma rays by the EBL at optical to UV frequencies, and allowed us to…
We propose that the interaction between the axionlike particles (ALPs) and photons can be a possible origin of optical circular polarization (CP) in blazars. Given that there is no definite detection of optical CP at $\sim0.1\%$ level, a rough limit on ALP-photon coupling can be obtained, specifically $g_{aγ}\cdot B_\mathrm{T0}\lesssim7.9\times10^{-12}~\mathrm{G\cdot GeV}^{-1}$ for $m_{a}\lesssim 10^{-13}~\mathrm{eV}$, depending on the magnetic field configuration of the blazar jet. Obviously, for the blazar models with a larger magnetic field strength, such as hadronic radiation models, this …
We report detection of a line-like feature in the $γ$-ray spectrum of the blazar B0516$-$621, for which the data obtained with the Large Area Telescope onboard {\it Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope (Fermi)} are analyzed. The feature is at $\sim$7\,GeV and different analyses are conducted to check its real presence. We determine that it has a significance of 2.5--3.0$σ$, and cautiously note the presence of possible systematics in the data which could reduce the significance. This putative feature is too narrow to be explained with radiation processes generally considered for jet emission of blaz…
The oscillation of photons and axion-like particles (ALPs) in the astrophysical magnetic fields could modify the measured very high energy (VHE; $\mathcal{E}\gtrsim 100\, \rm GeV$) $γ$-ray spectra of the blazar sources. In this paper, we use the VHE $γ$-ray observations of the blazar Markarian 421 (Mrk 421) measured by MAGIC and Fermi-LAT in 2017 with four phases to constrain the ALP. We give the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of these phases under the null and ALP hypotheses. We also test the effects of the $γ$-ray blazar intrinsic spectra models on the ALP constraints. No significant r…
Context. Most of the studies on extragalactic γ-ray propagation performed up to now only accounted for primary gamma-ray absorption and adiabatic losses ("absorption-only model"). However, there is growing evidence that this model is oversimplified and must be modified in some way. In particular, it was found that the intensity extrapolated from the optically-thin energy range of some blazar spectra is insufficient to explain the optically-thick part of these spectra. This effect was interpreted as an indication for γ-axion-like particle (ALP) oscillation. On the other hand, there are many hin…
Blazars - active galaxies with the jet pointing at Earth - emit across all electromagnetic wavelengths. The so-called one-zone model has described well both quiescent and flaring states, however it cannot explain the radio emission. In order to self-consistently describe the entire electromagnetic spectrum, extended jet models are necessary. Notably, kinetic descriptions of extended jets can provide the temporal and spatial evolution of the particle species and the full electromagnetic output. Here, we present the initial results of a recently developed hadronic extended-jet code. As protons t…
Axion-like particles (ALPs) are a broad class of pseudo-scalar bosons that generically arise from broken symmetries in extensions of the standard model. In many scenarios, ALPs can mix with photons in regions with high magnetic fields. Photons from distant sources can mix with ALPs, which then travel unattenuated through the Universe, before they mix back to photons in the Milky Way galactic magnetic field. Thus, photons can traverse regions where their signals would normally be blocked or attenuated. In this paper, we study TeV $γ$-ray observations from distant blazars, utilizing the signific…
Observations with the Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes H.E.S.S., MAGIC, CANGAROO III and VERITAS have shown that the Universe is more transparent than expected to gamma rays above 100GeV. As a natural explanation, the DARMA scenario has previously been proposed, wherein photons can oscillate into a new very light axionlike particle and vice-versa in the presence of cosmic magnetic fields. Here we demonstrate that the most recent observations further support the DARMA scenario, thereby making the existence of a very light axion-like particle more likely.
Very high energy (VHE) gamma-rays undergo pair production with low energy photons of background radiation fields. This leads to an attenuation of the primary gamma-ray flux of extragalactic sources in the interaction with the extragalactic background light (EBL) which stretches from ultraviolet to far-infrared wavelengths. In the presence of magnetic fields, gamma-rays could oscillate into hypothetical axion-like particles (ALPs). This might lead to a reduced opacity of the Universe for VHE gamma-rays, as ALPs circumvent pair production. Here, the impact of photon-ALP conversions on the spectr…
Decaying axion-like particles (ALP) with masses in the eV range which might occupy dark matter halos of the Milky Way and other galaxies produce a characteristic "bump" feature in the spectrum of extragalactic background light (EBL). This feature leaves an imprint on the gamma-ray spectra of distant extragalactic sources. We derive constraints on the ALP coupling to photons based on analysis of spectra of very-high-energy gamma-ray loud blazars. We combine gamma-ray spectral measurements by Fermi/LAT and Cherenkov telescopes and fit a model in which the intrinsic source spectrum is modified by…
We explore the axion-like particle (ALP)-photon oscillation effect in the $γ$-ray spectra of the blazars Markarian 421 (Mrk 421) and PG 1553+113, which are measured by the Major Atmospheric Gamma Imaging Cherenkov Telescopes (MAGIC) and Fermi Large Area Telescope (Fermi-LAT) with high precision. We investigate the constraints on the ALP parameter space using the Mrk 421 and PG 1553+113 observations of 15 and 5 phases, respectively. We find that the combined analysis with all the 15 phases improves the limits from the Mrk 421 observations. The combined limit set by the Mrk 421 observations has …
Probing Extragalactic Ultralight Axion Dark Matter with Decade-long Blazar Optical Polarimetry of 1ES 1959+650
Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院紫金山天文台）；School of Astronomy and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学技术大学天文与空间科学学院）
Gamma-rays from cosmological sources contain information about gamma-ray interactions. Standard model and non-standard model photon interactions along the path between the source and the observer can lead to changes in the energy or state of the photons, which in turn alters the observed energy spectrum of the source. In general, these interactions are a function of photon energy as well as source distance. Here we show how existing high energy (50 GeV -- 10TeV) gamma-ray observations of blazars can be used to constrain the coupling of axion-like-particles (ALPs) to the photon. The same ALP-ph…
We consider the largest observed sample including all intermediate-frequency peaked (IBL) and high-frequency peaked (HBL) flaring blazars above 100 GeV up to redshift $z = 0.6$. We show that the best-fit regression line of the emitted spectral indices $Γ_{\rm em} (z)$ is a concave parabola decreasing as $z$ increases, thereby implying a statistical correlation between the $\{Γ_{\rm em} (z) \}$ distribution and $z$. This result contradicts our expectation that such a distribution should be $z$-independent. We argue that the above correlation does not arise from any selection bias. We show that …
Inter-galactic magnetic fields can imprint their structure on the morphology of blazar-induced gamma ray halos. We show that the halo morphology arises through the interplay of the source's jet and a two-dimensional surface dictated by the magnetic field. Through extensive numerical simulations, we generate mock halos created by stochastic magnetic fields with and without helicity, and study the dependence of the halo features on the properties of the magnetic field. We propose a sharper version of the Q-statistics and demonstrate its sensitivity to the magnetic field strength, the coherence s…
The first measurements from the CIBER experiment of extragalactic background light (EBL) in near-infrared (NIR) band exhibit a higher intensity than those inferred through $γ$-ray observations. Recent theoretical-EBL intensities are typically consistent with the very high energy (VHE) $γ$-ray observations. Yet, it is possible that the excess NIR radiation is a new component of EBL and not in tension with the TeV spectra of distant blazars, since the hypothetical axion-like particle (ALP) may lead to a reduced opacity of the Universe for VHE $γ$-rays. In order to probe whether the excess compon…
Axion-Like Particles (ALPs), if exist in nature, are expected to mix with photons in the presence of an external magnetic field. The energy range of photons which undergo strong mixing with ALPs depends on the ALP mass, on its coupling with photons as well as on the external magnetic field and particle density configurations. Recent observations of blazars by the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope in the 0.1-300 GeV energy range show a break in their spectra in the 1-10 GeV range. We have modeled this spectral feature for the flat-spectrum radio quasar 3C454.3 during its November 2010 outburst, a…
We explore the signature imprinted by dynamically relevant magnetic fields on the spectral energy distribution (SED) of blazars. It is assumed that the emission from these sources originates from the collision of cold plasma shells, whose magnetohydrodynamic evolution we compute by numerically solving Riemann problems. We compute the SEDs including the most relevant radiative processes and scan a broad parameter space that encompasses a significant fraction of the commonly accepted values of not directly measurable physical properties. We reproduce the standard double hump SED found in blazar …
Energy-Dependent Polarization Angle Variability as a Robust Diagnostic for Blazar Flaring Mechanisms
University of Maryland Baltimore County（马里兰大学巴尔的摩县分校）；NASA Goddard Space Flight Center（美国国家航空航天局戈达德太空飞行中心）；Washington University in St Louis（华盛顿大学圣路易斯分校）；Los Alamos National Lab（洛斯阿拉莫斯国家实验室）；New Mexico Consortium（新墨西哥联盟）
Axion-like particles (ALPs) are attracting increasing interest since, among other things, they are a prediction of many extensions of the standard model of elementary particles physics and in particular of superstrings and superbranes. Remarkably, depending on the set of their parameter space, they strongly increase the photon transparency in the very-high energy band. The recent discovery of photon dispersion on the CMB requires a substantial modification of the previous picture: this is indeed the goal of the present paper. We compute the photon survival probability from a blazar to us exact…
Most blazars are known to be hosted in giant elliptic galaxies, but their cluster environments have not been thoroughly investigated. Cluster environments may contain radiation fields of low-energy photons created by nearby galaxies and/or stars in the intracluster medium that produce diffuse intracluster light. These radiation fields may absorb very high energy gamma rays ($E\gtrsim100$ GeV; VHE) and trigger pair cascades with further production of subsequent generations of gamma rays with lower energies via inverse Compton scattering on surrounding radiation fields leaving a characteristic i…
The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is about to enter construction phase and one of its main key science projects is to perform an unbiased survey in search of extragalactic sources. We make use of both the latest blazar gamma--ray luminosity function and spectral energy distribution to derive the expected number of detectable sources for both the planned Northern and Southern arrays of the CTA observatory. We find that a shallow, wide survey of about 0.5 hour per field of view would lead to the highest number of blazar detections. Furthermore, we investigate the effect of axion-like particles…
The idea that photons can convert into axion-like particles (ALPs) $γ\to a$ in or around an AGN and reconvert back into photons $a \to γ$ in the Milky Way magnetic field has been put forward in 2008 and has recently attracted growing interest. Yet, so far nobody has estimated the conversion probability $γ\to a$ as carefully as allowed by present-day knowledge. Our aim is to fill this gap. We first remark that AGN that can be detected above 100 GeV are blazars, namely AGN with jets, with one of them pointing towards us. Moreover, blazars fall into two well defined classes: BL Lac objects (BL La…
Scalar, tensor waves induce oscillatory perturbations in Keplerian systems that can be probed with measurements of pulsar timing residuals. In this paper, we consider the imprint of coherent oscillations produced by ultralight axion dark matter on the Roemer time delay. We use the angle-action formalism to calculate the time evolution of the observed signal and its dependence on the orbital parameters and the axion phase. We derive exact analytical expressions for arbitrary binary pulsar mass ratio and eccentricity, alleviating the need for long numerical integrations. We emphasize the similar…
Many extensions of the Standard Model predict the existence of ALPs, which are very light spin-zero bosons with a two-photon coupling. Photon-ALP oscillations occur in the presence of an external magnetic field, and ALPs can lead to observable effects on the measured photon spectrum of astrophysical sources. An intriguing situation arises when blazars are observed with the Cherenkov Telescopes H.E.S.S., MAGIC, CANGAROO III and VERITAS. The extragalactic background light (EBL) produced by galaxies during cosmic evolution gives rise to a source dimming which becomes important in the VHE band. Th…
Blazars are among the most powerful accelerators and are expected to produce a bright TeV $γ$-ray flux. However, TeV $γ$-rays are attenuated by interactions with intergalactic radiation before reaching Earth. These interactions produce cascades that transfer TeV power into the GeV band, powering both extended halos around bright sources and a large contribution to the isotropic $γ$-ray background (IGRB). Using conservative blazar models and recent IGRB measurements, we rule out scenarios where blazars effectively transfer their multi-TeV power into GeV $γ$-rays. Three possible solutions includ…
Galaxy clusters contain large magnetic fields that make them excellent targets to search for ultralight Axion-Like Particles (ALPs). ALP-photon interconversion imprints quasi-sinusoidal oscillations on the X-ray spectra of point sources in or behind the cluster. The absence of substantial oscillations allows us to place bounds on $g_{a γγ}$. Here the bounds from the {\it Chandra} X-ray observations of NGC1275 are presented, as well as those predicted for the {\it Athena} X-ray observatory, due to launch in 2028.
Recent progress in very high energy (VHE, E >100 GeV) $γ$-ray observations, together with advances in the extragalactic background light (EBL) modelling, allows to search for new phenomena such as $γ$-axion-like particle ($γ\rightarrow$ ALP) oscillation and to explore the extragalactic magnetic field (EGMF) strength and structure. These studies are usually performed by searching for some deviation from the so-called absorption-only model, that accounts for only primary photon absorption on the EBL and adiabatic losses. In fact, there exist several indications that the absorption-only model is …
Photons may convert into axion like particles and back in the magnetic field of various astrophysical objects, including active galaxies, clusters of galaxies, intergalactic space and the Milky Way. This is a potential explanation for the candidate neutral ultra-high-energy (E>10^18 eV) particles from distant BL Lac type objects which have been observed by the High Resolution Fly's Eye experiment. Axions of the same mass and coupling may explain also TeV photons detected from distant blazars.
Flat spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs) are a particular class of blazars rich of optical/ultraviolet photons inside the broad line region (BLR), necessarily implying a huge optical depth for $γ$ rays above 20 GeV. As a consequence, photons with energy above such a threshold should not be emitted. However, photons in the energy range 70 - 400 GeV have been observed by MAGIC from the FSRQ PKS 1222+216. Several astrophysical explanations exist in the literature, but they are all ad hoc, namely devised only for that specific purpose. We show that such a surprising discovery can be explained within st…
In this work, we investigate the axion-like particle (ALP)-photon oscillation effect in the spectra of the blazar Markarian 421 (Mrk 421) using 4.5 years of the Astrophysical Radiation with Ground-based Observatory at YangBaJing (ARGO-YBJ) and Fermi Large Area Telescope (Fermi-LAT) data. These data are collected during the common operation time, which cover ten activity phases of Mrk 421. No significant ALP-photon oscillation effect is confirmed. On the other hand, not all the observations of the ten phases can be individually used to set the 95% confidence level ($\rm C.L.$) constraint on the…
The imprint of cosmic backgrounds in the gamma ray spectra of blazars has recently been detected by H.E.S.S. and Fermi-LAT, opening the way to studies of gamma-ray propagation on cosmological scales. This proceeding discusses the current constraints on the extragalactic background light (EBL), the effort to increase the collection of blazars detected at TeV energies, and a crucial part of the science case of next-generation instruments: gamma-ray cosmology.
X-ray data from the blazar BL Lac are used to investigate the nature of its variability, and more precisely the flux dependency of the variability and the distribution of fluxes. The variations in the flux are found to have a lognormal distribution and the average amplitude of variability is proportional to the flux level. BL Lac is the first blazar in which lognormal X-ray variability is clearly detected. Lognormal variability in X-ray light curves, probably related to accretion disk activity, has been discovered in various compact systems, such as Seyfert galaxies and X-ray binaries. The lig…
D. Wouters and P. Brun in Phys. Rev. D 86, 043005 (2012) claim that an observable effect in the spectra of distant very-high-energy blazars arises as a consequence of oscillations of photons into axion-like particles (ALPs) in the presence of turbulent extra-galactic magnetic fields. The main objective of this comment is to demonstrate that such a result is physically incorrect. We also show that a physically correct treatment of the same issue leads to a much less relevant conclusion, which makes the effect pointed out by WB likely unobservable with the present capabilities.
Ultralight axions which couple sufficiently strongly to photons can leave imprints on the sky at diverse frequencies by mixing with cosmic light in the presence of background magnetic fields. We explore such direction dependent grey-body distortions of the CMB spectrum, enhanced by resonant conditions in the IGM plasma. We also find that if such axions are produced in the early universe and represent a subdominant dark radiation component today, they could convert into X-rays in supervoids, and brighten them at X-ray frequencies.
A Tentative Line-like GeV Excess in Fermi Blazar 4FGL J1754.2+3212: Implications for Jet Physics and Beyond
School of Physics and Electrical Engineering, Liupanshui Normal University（六盘水师范学院物理与电气工程学院）；Department of Physics, Yunnan Normal University（云南师范大学物理系）；Department of Astronomy, School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology（华中科技大学物理学院天文学系）
Resonant photon-axion conversion driven by axion dark matter oscillations
Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, UCAS（杭州高等研究院）；University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学）；State Key Laboratory of Particle Astrophysics, Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（高能物理研究所粒子天体物理国家重点实验室）；Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（理论物理研究所）
Pseudoscalar particles like axion-like particles generically couple to two photons, giving rise to the possibility of oscillations with photons in an external magnetic field. These oscillations could lead to measurable imprints in the electromagnetic spectrum of astrophysical sources if the coupling to photons is strong enough. One possible signature is the presence of irregularities in a limited energy range of the spectrum. In this study, anomalous irregularities are searched for in the spectrum of the bright extragalactic TeV emitter PKS 2155-304 as measured by H.E.S.S. to put constraints o…
The high-energy Universe is potentially a great laboratory for searching new light bosons such as axion-like particles (ALPs). Cosmic sources are indeed the scene of violent phenomena that involve strong magnetic field and/or very long baselines, where the effects of the mixing of photons with ALPs could lead to observable effects. Two examples are archetypal of this fact, that are the Universe opacity to gamma-rays and the imprints of astrophysical magnetic turbulence in the energy spectra of high-energy sources. In the first case, hints for the existence of ALPs can be proposed whereas the s…
Gamma-ray photons can convert into axion-like particles (ALPs) and vice versa when interacting with astrophysical magnetic fields. The conversions of ALPs may have important implications for astrophysics since they would imprint characteristic features on the spectra of gamma-ray sources. The features may be detected by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and by current Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (IACTs) or the future Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA). Thus, gamma-ray observations can provide valuable constraints on the nature of ALPs, and represent an excellent complementary appro…
The extragalactic background light (EBL) contains important information about stellar and galaxy evolution. It leaves imprint on the very high energy $γ$-ray spectra from sources at cosmological distances due to the process of pair production. In this work we propose to {\em measure} the EBL directly by extracting the collective attenuation effects in a number of $γ$-ray sources at different redshifts. Using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo fitting method, the EBL intensities and the intrinsic spectral parameters of $γ$-ray sources are derived simultaneously. No prior shape of EBL is assumed in the …
Several extensions of the Standard Model predict the existence of Axion-Like Particles (ALPs), very light spin-zero bosons with a two-photon coupling. ALPs can give rise to observable effects in very-high-energy astrophysics. Above roughly 100 GeV the horizon of the observable Universe progressively shrinks as the energy increases, due to scattering of beam photons off background photons in the optical and infrared bands, which produces e+e- pairs. In the presence of large-scale magnetic fields photons emitted by a blazar can oscillate into ALPs on the way to us and back into photons before re…
The nature of dark matter is one of the longest-standing puzzles in science. Axions or axion-like particles are a key possibility, and arise in mechanisms to solve the strong CP problem but also in low-energy limits of string theory. Extensive experimental and observational efforts are actively looking for `axionic' imprints. Independently on their nature, their abundance, and on their contribution to the dark matter problem, axions form dense clouds around spinning black holes, grown by superradiant mechanisms. It was recently suggested that once couplings to photons are considered, an expone…
