2026 Canadian Astroparticle Physics Community Meeting

Axions from Nuclear Transition

Not scheduled

20m

20-Minute Talk (15-minute presentation, 5-min Q&A)

Speaker

Anupam Ray (Queen's University)

Description

In this talk, I will walk you through how mono-energetic axions can be produced in abundance through nuclear de-excitations inside stars. If the axion couples to both nucleons and photons and is ultralight, these axions can convert into photons in the magnetic fields permeating astrophysical systems, generating monochromatic hard X-ray signatures. The non-detection of such X-ray lines therefore places significant constraints on axion interactions. I will also discuss an alternative and complementary approach: the direct detection of these axions via resonant absorption, which provides another promising avenue to probe axion couplings.