A Search for a Contribution from Axion-Like Particles to the X-Ray Diffuse Background Utilizing the Earth's Magnetic Field

Abstract

The Axion Like Particle (ALP) is a hypothetical pseudo-scalar particle beyond the Standard Model, with a compelling possible connection to dark matter and early universe physics. ALPs can be converted into photons via interactions with magnetic fields in the universe, i.e., the so-called inverse Primakoff effect. In this paper, we propose a novel method to explore ALP-induced photons from X-ray data obtained from the {\it Suzaku} satellite, arising from a possible interaction of ALPs with the direction-dependent Earth's magnetic field viewed from the satellite. {\it Suzaku} data is suitable for this purpose because its low-altitude Earth orbit result in intrinsically low cosmic-ray background radiation. We study whether the X-ray diffuse background (XDB) spectra estimated from the four deep fields collected over eight years, vary with the integrated Earth's magnetic strength in the direction of each target field at each observation epoch, which amounts to $10^2$ Tm-a value greater than that achieved by terrestrial experiments due to the large coherent length. From the detailed analysis, we did not find evidence of the XDB confidence level spectra having dependence on the Earth's magnetic strength. We obtained 99 % confidence level upper limit on a possible residual contribution to the cosmic X-ray background (CXB) surface brightness to be $1.6\times 10^{-9}{\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{s}}^{-1}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-2}{\mathrm{sr}}^{-1}$ normalized at $10^4$ T${}^2$ m${}^2$ in the 2-6 keV range, which corresponds to 6-15 % of the observed CXB brightness, depending on which model of unresolved point sources are used in the interpretation. It is consistent with 80-90 % of the CXB now being resolved into point sources.

arXiv comment13 pages, 4 figures, Prepared for submission to JCAP

References in corpus (22)

• The Leiden/Argentine/Bonn (LAB) Survey of Galactic HI: Final data release of the combined LDS and IAR surveys with improved stray-radiation corrections
• Collisional Plasma Models with APEC/APED: Emission Line Diagnostics of Hydrogen-like and Helium-like Ions
• New CAST Limit on the Axion-Photon Interaction
• The Chandra Deep Field-South Survey: 7 Ms Source Catalogs
• Monte-Carlo Simulator and Ancillary Response Generator of Suzaku XRT/XIS System for Spatially Extended Source Analysis
• An improved limit on the axion-photon coupling from the CAST experiment
• Reproducibility of Non-X-ray Background for the X-ray Imaging Spectrometer aboard Suzaku
• In-Orbit Performance of the Hard X-ray Detector on board Suzaku
• Energy Spectra of the Soft X-ray Diffuse Emission in Fourteen Fields Observed with Suzaku
• The Chandra COSMOS legacy survey: Energy Spectrum of the Cosmic X-ray Background and constraints on undetected populations
• A 3.55 keV Photon Line and its Morphology from a 3.55 keV ALP Line
• Spatial distribution of the Milky Way hot gaseous halo constrained by Suzaku X-ray observations
• 3.55 keV photon lines from axion to photon conversion in the Milky Way and M31
• Constraint on Cosmic Density of the String Moduli Field in Gauge-Mediated Supersymmetry-Breaking Theories
• A Search for a keV Signature of Radiatively Decaying Dark Matter with Suzaku XIS Observations of the X-ray Diffuse Background
• Spectrum of Background X-rays from Moduli Dark Matter
• A 3.55 keV line from $\text{DM}\to a\to \gamma$: predictions for cool-core and non-cool-core clusters
• Detecting solar axions using Earth's magnetic field
• Probing the axion-photon coupling: phenomenological and experimental perspectives. A snowmass white paper
• Feasibility Study for Measuring Geomagnetic Conversion of Solar Axions to X-rays in Low Earth Orbits
• Long Term Variability of O VII Line Intensity toward the Lockman Hole Observed with Suzaku from 2006 to 2011
• No axions from the Sun