Probing a diffuse flux of axion-like particles from galactic supernovae with neutrino water Cherenkov detectors

Abstract

In this article, we claim that axion-like particles (ALPs) with MeV masses can be produced with semi-relativistic velocities in core-collapse supernovae (SNe), generating a diffuse galactic flux. We show that these ALPs can be detected in neutrino water Cherenkov detectors via $ap\to p\gamma$ interactions. Using Super-Kamiokande data, we derive new constraints on the ALP parameter space, excluding a region spanning one order of magnitude in the ALP-proton coupling above cooling bounds for ALP masses in the range of $1-70$~MeV and ALP-proton couplings between $\sim 2\times 10^{-5}-2\times 10^{-4}$. We show that the future Hyper-Kamiokande will be able to probe couplings as small as $\sim 10^{-5}$, considerably constraining the allowed region above SN 1987A cooling bounds.

Missing factor of 4pi corrected in Eq.(10) with respect to the published version in PRD. Numerical values and figures updated accordingly. Overall conclusions unchanged. 18 pages, 6 figures

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Cited by in corpus (2)

• Detecting Supernova Axions with IAXO
• Fresh look at the diffuse ALP background from supernovae