After axions were first theorized by physics in the Chicago suburbs 45 years ago, they quickly grew as a strong candidate to explain it dark matter. All this time, however, the ultra-small particles have remained hypothetical. Now, a team of astronomers has suggested that axions may be responsible for excessive X-ray emissions seen coming from a group of neutron stars in our galaxy.
The stars – known as the “Magnificent Seven” – are neutron stars which emit low-frequency X-ray radiation from their surfaces. Neutron stars are dense transitions of fallen stars. They have powerful magnetic fields, and, as the name would suggest, are made up largely of neutrons. The new search, published this week in Physical Review Letters magazine, focus will be on a handful of high-frequency X-rays presented by the seven stars.
“It’s possible that what we’re seeing here as evidence for a new physics, as evidence for axions, that would change our understanding of nature in a very big way, which is difficult to convey,” he said. Benjamin Safdi, a physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a recent lead author of the paper, said in a phone call. “That finding could come with this paper; it could come 500 years from now. That’s the way science works, so there’s no guarantee that we’ll be happy right away. ”
The main uncertainty about it axions rotate around any. In other words, there is a consensus among physicists about the properties of these theoretical elements, if they existed. One such property is that axions would interact very weakly, and very rarely, with a normal subject. Instead of scattering off the object in the star, the axions would escape straight. Another is that axions can turn into photons in the presence of magnetic fields – such as those around the seven neutron stars.
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The researchers compare the possible behavior of the axions with neutrinos, a similar small grain (although it has been proven to exist) that it rarely sends between -work with another issue. Neutrons inside neutron stars are known to emit and emit neutrinos, which are the main way the star cools over time.
The team’s suggestion is that axions could form in the centers of neutron stars, where it is much hotter and more energetic than the surface of a star. Just as neutrons within that thick, hot region emit neutrinos through their crashes, so too could axions be made. The difference is that the axion could turn into a photon in a magnetic field field. The fizzing energy of that photon would be found on the X-ray spectrum, especially in the high frequency range. Previous data were collected of these high-frequency waves, but only as a result of the main subject of study: the low-frequency X-ray waves coming off the surface of the stars.
“We are not claiming that we have found the axion yet, but we are saying that the extra X-ray photons can be explained by axions,” said Raymond Co., a geologist at the University of Minnesota and her co-author. paper, in a press release. “This is an interesting discovery of excess in the X-ray photons, and it is an interesting discovery that is already consistent with our definition of axes. ”
Safdi hopes that in the future a nearby dwarf white, degenerate star that is less dense and with colder surface temperatures than a neutron star can be noticed in the future. Since white dwarfs do not emit low frequency X-rays from their surface, an X-ray telescope never had any reason to marked at one.
“There is nothing that should appear on any X-ray wave,” said Safdi. “If we see a sign, we can be much more confident that what we are seeing is an ax. ”