No Indications of Axion-Like Particles From Fermi

Abstract

As very high energy (~100 GeV) gamma rays travel over cosmological distances, their flux is attenuated through interactions with the extragalactic background light. Observations of distant gamma ray sources at energies between ~200 GeV and a few TeV by ground-based gamma ray telescopes such as HESS, however, suggest that the universe is more transparent to very high energy photons than had been anticipated. One possible explanation for this is the existence of axion-like-particles (ALPs) which gamma rays can efficiently oscillate into, enabling them to travel cosmological distances without attenuation. In this article, we use data from the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope to calculate the spectra at 1-100 GeV of two gamma ray sources, 1ES1101-232 at redshift z=0.186 and H2356-309 at z=0.165, and use this in conjunction with the measurements of ground-based telescopes to test the ALP hypothesis. We find that the observations can be well-fit by an intrinsic power-law source spectrum with indices of -1.72 and -2.1 for 1ES1101-232 and H2356-309, respectively, and that no ALPs or other exotic physics is necessary to explain the observed degree of attenuation.

7 pages, 4 figures. v3: Matches published version, the analysis of H2356-309 is revised, no change in conclusions

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• Effect of axion-like particles on the spectrum of the extragalactic gamma-ray background
• Constraints on Axion-like Particles from the Observation of GRB 221009A by LHAASO
• Implications of photon-ALP oscillations in the extragalactic neutrino source TXS 0506+056 at sub-PeV energies
• Constraints on Axion-like Particles from Observations of Mrk 421 using the $\mathrm{C}{\mathrm{L}}_{\mathrm{s}}$ Method
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• Relevance of VHE Blazar Spectra Models with Axion-Like Particles
• Probing photon-ALP oscillations from the MAGIC observations of FSRQ QSO B1420+326
• Axion effects on gamma-ray spectral irregularities with AGN redshift uncertainty
• Constraints on Axion-like Particles from the gamma-ray observation of the Galactic Center
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• Non-perturbative Treatments of the Bosonic String and the Axion with Cosmological Implications