Detecting solar axions using Earth's magnetic field

Abstract

We show that solar axion conversion to photons in the Earth's magnetosphere can produce an x-ray flux, with average energy \sim 4 keV, which is measurable on the dark side of the Earth. The smallness of the Earth's magnetic field is compensated by a large magnetized volume. For axion masses < 10^{-4} eV, a low-Earth-orbit x-ray detector with an effective area of 10^4 cm^2, pointed at the solar core, can probe the photon-axion coupling down to 10^{-11} GeV^{-1}, in one year. Thus, the sensitivity of this new approach will be an order of magnitude beyond current laboratory limits.

3 pages, 1 figure, typos corrected, references added

References in corpus (4)

• Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (in "The Review of Particle Properties" 2004)
• First results from the CERN Axion Solar Telescope (CAST)
• The spectrum of the cosmic X-ray background observed by RTXE/PCA
• Search for energetic cosmic axions utilizing terrestrial/celestial magnetic fields

Cited by in corpus (29)

• The Low-Energy Frontier of Particle Physics
• Invisible Axion Search Methods
• A New Flavor of Searches for Axion-Like Particles
• Detecting Axion-Like Particles With Gamma Ray Telescopes
• Dark Matter Candidates - Axions, Neutralinos, Gravitinos, and Axinos
• Conversion of Dark matter axions to photons in magnetospheres of neutron stars
• Axions - Motivation, limits and searches
• Reconciling the CAST and PVLAS Results
• Axion Searches in the Past, at Present, and in the Near Future
• Axion Searches with Helioscopes and astrophysical signatures for axion(-like) particles
• Axion Astrophysics
• Spectral Signatures of Photon-Particle Oscillations from Celestial Objects
• Earth as a transducer for axion dark-matter detection
• First limits on the 3-200 keV X-ray spectrum of the quiet Sun using RHESSI
• Jupiter missions as probes of dark matter
• Limits on High-Frequency Gravitational Waves in Planetary Magnetospheres
• Hidden Photon Dark Matter Interacting via Axion-like Particles
• Snowmass-2013 Cosmic Frontier 3 (CF3) Working Group Summary: Non-WIMP dark matter
• Feasibility Study for Measuring Geomagnetic Conversion of Solar Axions to X-rays in Low Earth Orbits
• X-ray annual modulation observed by XMM-Newton and Axion Quark Nugget Dark Matter
• Constraining the Randall-Sundrum modulus in the light of recent PVLAS data
• Searching for energetic cosmic axions in a laboratory experiment: testing the PVLAS anomaly
• No axions from the Sun
• Exploring scalar-photon interactions in energetic astrophysical events
• On the Detectability of 57Fe Axion-Photon Mode Conversion in the Sun
• A Search for a Contribution from Axion-Like Particles to the X-Ray Diffuse Background Utilizing the Earth's Magnetic Field
• GPS and the Search for Axions
• Signatures of Solar Chameleons in the Earth's Magnetic Field
• An Axion Interpretation of the ANITA Events