Constraints on axion-like polarization oscillations in the cosmic microwave background with POLARBEAR

Abstract

Very light pseudoscalar fields, often referred to as axions, are compelling dark matter candidates and can potentially be detected through their coupling to the electromagnetic field. Recently a novel detection technique using the cosmic microwave background (CMB) was proposed, which relies on the fact that the axion field oscillates at a frequency equal to its mass in appropriate units, leading to a time-dependent birefringence. For appropriate oscillation periods this allows the axion field at the telescope to be detected via the induced sinusoidal oscillation of the CMB linear polarization. We search for this effect in two years of POLARBEAR data. We do not detect a signal, and place a median $95\%$ upper limit of $0.65^{\circ }$ on the sinusoid amplitude for oscillation frequencies between $0.02{\text{days}}^{-1}$ and $0.45{\text{days}}^{-1}$, which corresponds to axion masses between $9.6\times 10^{-22}\text{eV}$ and $2.2\times 10^{-20}\text{eV}$. Under the assumptions that 1) the axion constitutes all the dark matter and 2) the axion field amplitude is a Rayleigh-distributed stochastic variable, this translates to a limit on the axion-photon coupling $g_{\varphi \gamma }<2.4\times 10^{-11}{\text{GeV}}^{-1}\times (m_{\varphi }/10^{-21}\text{eV})$.

17 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables. Published in Physical Review D

References in corpus (10)

• Ultralight scalars as cosmological dark matter
• Dielectric Haloscopes: A New Way to Detect Axion Dark Matter
• Revisiting the SN1987A gamma-ray limit on ultralight axion-like particles
• CMB Polarization Systematics Due to Beam Asymmetry: Impact on Inflationary Science
• Self-Calibration of CMB Polarization Experiments
• New constraints on light Axion-Like Particles using Chandra Transmission Grating Spectroscopy of the powerful cluster-hosted quasar H1821+643
• Stringent axion constraints with Event Horizon Telescope polarimetric measurements of M87${}^{\star }$
• Searching for axion-like time-dependent cosmic birefringence with data from SPT-3G
• BICEP / Keck XIV: Improved constraints on axion-like polarization oscillations in the cosmic microwave background
• BICEP / Keck XII: Constraints on axion-like polarization oscillations in the cosmic microwave background

Cited by in corpus (11)

• Detecting Axion Dark Matter with Black Hole Polarimetry
• Search for ultralight dark matter in the SuperMAG high-fidelity dataset
• A New Solution for the Observed Isotropic Cosmic Birefringence Angle and its Implications for the Anisotropic Counterpart through a Boltzmann Approach
• Exploration of the polarization angle variability of the Crab Nebula with POLARBEAR and its application to the search for axion-like particles
• Measuring axion gradients with photon interferometry (MAGPI)
• New Interpretations of the Cosmological Preference for a Negative Neutrino Mass
• Greybody factors of charged black holes with axion hair
• Star Shearing Season -- Transient Signals in Wave-like Dark Matter Experiments from Black Hole Formation
• Forecast constraints on the axion-photon coupling from interstellar medium heating
• Constraints on axion-like ultralight dark matter from observations of the HL Tauri protoplanetary disk
• Time-dependent deflection reconstruction: new technique to search for gravitational waves with the cosmic microwave background