PIRSA:21110016

Axion Production in Pulsar Magnetosphere Gaps

Prabhu, A. (2021). Axion Production in Pulsar Magnetosphere Gaps. Perimeter Institute. https://pirsa.org/21110016

Prabhu, Anirudh. Axion Production in Pulsar Magnetosphere Gaps. Perimeter Institute, Nov. 12, 2021, https://pirsa.org/21110016 

          @misc{ pirsa_PIRSA:21110016,
            doi = {10.48660/21110016},
            url = {https://pirsa.org/21110016},
            author = {Prabhu, Anirudh},
            keywords = {Particle Physics},
            language = {en},
            title = {Axion Production in Pulsar Magnetosphere Gaps},
            publisher = {Perimeter Institute},
            year = {2021},
            month = {nov},
            note = {PIRSA:21110016 see, \url{https://pirsa.org}}
          }

Anirudh Prabhu

Stanford University

Talk number
PIRSA:21110016
Collection
Talk Type
Subject
Abstract

Pulsar magnetospheres admit non-stationary vacuum gaps that are characterized by non-vanishing E•B. These gaps play an important role in plasma production and electromagnetic wave emission and, as I will discuss, are very efficient axion factories. The density of axions produced in a vacuum gap can be several orders of magnitude greater than the ambient dark matter density.  In the strong pulsar magnetic field, a fraction of these axions may convert to photons, giving rise to broadband radio signals. We show that dedicated observations of nearby pulsars with radio telescopes (FAST) and interferometers (SKA) can probe axion-photon couplings that are a few orders of magnitude lower than current astrophysical bounds.