Searching for axionlike time-dependent cosmic birefringence with data from SPT-3G
International audience Ultralight axionlike particles (ALPs) are compelling dark matter candidates because of their potential to resolve small-scale discrepancies between Λ CDM predictions and cosmological observations. Axion-photon coupling induces a polarization rotation in linearly polarized phot...
Published in: | Physical Review D |
---|---|
Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
Other Authors: | , , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
HAL CCSD
2022
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://hal.science/hal-03632659 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.106.042011 |
Summary: | International audience Ultralight axionlike particles (ALPs) are compelling dark matter candidates because of their potential to resolve small-scale discrepancies between Λ CDM predictions and cosmological observations. Axion-photon coupling induces a polarization rotation in linearly polarized photons traveling through an ALP field; thus, as the local ALP dark matter field oscillates in time, distant static polarized sources will appear to oscillate with a frequency proportional to the ALP mass. We use observations of the cosmic microwave background from SPT-3G, the current receiver on the South Pole Telescope, to set upper limits on the value of the axion-photon coupling constant g ϕ γ over the approximate mass range 10 - 22 – 10 - 19 eV , corresponding to oscillation periods from 12 hours to 100 days. For periods between 1 and 100 days ( 4.7 × 10 - 22 eV ≤ m ϕ ≤ 4.7 × 10 - 20 eV ), where the limit is approximately constant, we set a median 95% C.L. upper limit on the amplitude of on-sky polarization rotation of 0.071 deg. Assuming that dark matter comprises a single ALP species with a local dark matter density of 0.3 GeV / cm 3 , this corresponds to g ϕ γ < 1.18 × 10 - 12 GeV - 1 × ( m ϕ 1.0 × 10 - 21 eV ) . These new limits represent an improvement over the previous strongest limits set using the same effect by a factor of ∼ 3.8 . |
---|