1. Axion and dark photon limits from Crab Nebula high-energy gamma rays.
- Author
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Xiaojun Bi, Yu Gao, Junguang Guo, Houston, Nick, Tianjun Li, Fangzhou Xu, and Xin Zhang
- Subjects
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COMPTON scattering , *GAMMA rays , *CRAB Nebula , *GAMMA ray bursts , *AXIONS , *COSMIC rays , *PHOTONS , *DARK matter - Abstract
The observation of cosmic sub-PeV gamma rays from the Crab Nebula opens up the possibility of testing cosmic ray photon transparency at the multi-hundred-TeV scale. Assuming no deviation from a source gamma-ray emission due to accelerated electron inverse-Compton scattering, higher event energies can extend constraints on the effects of new physics; we consider oscillation between gamma rays and axions, plus attenuation effects from gamma-ray absorption in the case of dark photon dark matter. Combining the recent ASγ and HAWC sub-PeV data with earlier MAGIC and HEGRA data, axionlike particles are most constrained in the 2×10-7-6×10-7 eV mass range, where the coupling gaγγ is constrained to be below 1.8×10-10 GeV-1. Direct scattering from dark photon dark matter limits kinetic mixing ε≲10-3 for masses between 0.01 and 1 eV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2021
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