Probing Axions with Event Horizon Telescope Polarimetric Measurements

Abstract

With high spatial resolution, polarimetric imaging of a supermassive black hole, like M87${}^{\star }$ or Sgr A${}^{\star }$, by the Event Horizon Telescope can be used to probe the existence of ultralight bosonic particles, such as axions. Such particles can accumulate around a rotating black hole through the superradiance mechanism, forming an axion cloud. When linearly polarized photons are emitted from an accretion disk near the horizon, their position angles oscillate due to the birefringent effect when traveling through the axion background. In particular, the observations of supermassive black holes M87${}^{\star }$ (Sgr A${}^{\star }$) can probe the dimensionless axion-photon coupling $c=2\pi g_{a\gamma }{f}_a$ for axions with mass around $O(10^{-20})$~eV ($O(10^{-17}$)~eV) and decay constant $f_a<O(10^{16})$ GeV, which is complimentary to other axion measurements.

arXiv comment7 pages, 3 figures, published version

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• Detection of Early-Universe Gravitational Wave Signatures and Fundamental Physics
• Looking for ultralight dark matter near supermassive black holes
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• Stringent axion constraints with Event Horizon Telescope polarimetric measurements of M87${}^{\star }$
• The problem with Proca: ghost instabilities in self-interacting vector fields
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• Testing the equivalence principle via the shadow of black holes
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• Implications of the Cosmic Birefringence Measurement for the Axion Dark Matter Search
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• Testing the ALP-photon coupling with polarization measurements of Sagittarius A*
• Photon Ring Astrometry for Superradiant Clouds
• Self-interacting scalar dark matter around binary black holes
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• Probing Cosmic-Ray Accelerated Light Dark Matter with IceCube
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• Scalarized Einstein-Born-Infeld-scalar Black Holes
• Quasibound states of charged dilatonic black holes
• Testing EGB gravity coupled to bumblebee field and black hole parameter estimation with EHT observations
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• Optical properties of dynamical axion backgrounds
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• Improved Analytic Solution of Black Hole Superradiance
• Constraining ultralight bosonic dark matter with Keck observations of S2's orbit and kinematics
• Polarimetric signatures of the photon ring of a black hole that is pierced by a cosmic axion string
• Sensitivity of Space-based Gravitational-Wave Interferometers to Ultralight Bosonic Fields and Dark Matter
• Gravitational waves and neutrino oscillations in Chern-Simons axion gravity
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• Detecting Axion Dark Matter with Black Hole Polarimetry
• Connecting the Extremes: A Story of Supermassive Black Holes and Ultralight Dark Matter
• Constraints on axionic fuzzy dark matter from light bending and Shapiro time delay
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• Warm and Fuzzy Dark Matter: Free Streaming of Wave Dark Matter
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• Probing Stochastic Ultralight Dark Matter with Space-based Gravitational-Wave Interferometers
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• Stringent constraints on the light boson model with supermassive black hole spin measurements
• Probing Massive Fields with Multi-Band Gravitational-Wave Observations
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• Test of Kerr-Sen metric with black hole observations
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• New insights into axion freeze-in
• Illuminating Black Hole Shadow with Dark Matter Annihilation
• Optical circular polarization induced by axionlike particles in blazars
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• Imaging the event horizon of M87* from space on different timescales
• QED Effects on Kerr-Newman Black Hole Shadows
• Charged Black Holes in the Kalb-Ramond Background with Lorentz Violation: Null Geodesics and Optical Appearance of a Thin Accretion Disk
• Do neutrinos bend? Consequences of an ultralight gauge field as dark matter
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• Shadow of a disformal Kerr black hole in quadratic DHOST theories
• Detecting Extragalactic Axion-like Dark Matter with Polarization Measurements of Fast Radio Bursts
• Constraining eV-scale axion-like particle dark matter: insights from the M87 Galaxy
• Gravitational Atoms from Topological Stars
• Superradiant dark matter production from primordial black holes: Impact of multiple modes and gravitational wave emission
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• Searching for Axion-Like Particles with X-ray Observations of Alpha Centauri
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