Supernova Axions Convert to Gamma Rays in Magnetic Fields of Progenitor Stars

Abstract

It has long been established that axions could have been produced within the nascent proto-neutron star formed following the type II supernova SN1987A, escaped the star due to their weak interactions, and then converted to gamma rays in the Galactic magnetic fields; the nonobservation of a gamma-ray flash coincident with the neutrino burst leads to strong constraints on the axion-photon coupling for axion masses ma≲10-10 eV. In this Letter, we use SN1987A to constrain higher mass axions, all the way to ma∼10-3 eV, by accounting for axion production from the Primakoff process, nucleon bremsstrahlung, and pion conversion along with axion-photon conversion on the still-intact magnetic fields of the progenitor star. Moreover, we show that gamma-ray observations of the next Galactic supernova, leveraging the magnetic fields of the progenitor star, could detect quantum chromodynamics axions for masses above roughly 50 μeV, depending on the supernova. We propose a new full-sky gamma-ray satellite constellation that we call the GALactic AXion Instrument for Supernova (GALAXIS) to search for such future signals along with related signals from extragalactic neutron star mergers.