Light Shining Through Wall Bounds on Axions From Obscured Magnetars

Understand

Coupling of axions or axion-like particles (ALPs) with photons may lead to photons escaping optically opaque regions by oscillating into ALPs.

• This phenomenon may be viewed as the Light Shining through Wall (LSW) scenario.
• While this LSW technique has been used previously in controlled laboratory settings to constrain the ALP-photon coupling ($g_{a\gamma}$), we show that this can also be applied in astrophysical environments.
• We find that obscured magnetars in particular are excellent candidates for this purpose.