New constraints for heavy axion-like particles from supernovae

Understand

We derive new constraints on the coupling of heavy pseudoscalar (axion-like) particles to photons, based on the gamma ray flux expected from the decay of these particles into photons.

• After being produced in the supernova core, these heavy axion-like particles would escape and a fraction of them would decay into photons before reaching the Earth.
• We have calculated the expected flux on Earth of these photons from the supernovae SN 1987A and Cassiopeia A and compared our results to data from the Fermi Large Area Telescope.
• This analysis provides strong constraints on the parameter space for axion-like particles.