Chameleon-Photon Mixing in a Primordial Magnetic Field

TL;DR

This paper investigates the potential effects of photon-ALP mixing in primordial magnetic fields on the CMB, providing constraints on the coupling strength and magnetic field magnitude based on COBE/FIRAS data.

Contribution

It offers the first constraints on chameleon scalar-photon coupling and primordial magnetic field strength from CMB intensity spectrum measurements.

Findings

Negligible impact on CMB polarization.

Significant constraints on photon-scalar coupling g.

Upper bound on primordial magnetic field B < 5.0x10^{-9}G.

Abstract

We consider the non-resonant mixing between photons and scalar ALPs with masses much less than the plasma frequency along the path, with specific reference to the chameleon scalar field model. The mixing would alter the intensity and polarization state of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. We find that the average modification to the CMB polarization modes is negligible. However the average modification to the CMB intensity spectrum is more significant and we compare this to high precision measurements of the CMB monopole made by the far infrared absolute spectrophotometer (FIRAS) on board the COBE satellite. The resulting 95\% confidence limit on the scalar-photon conversion probability in the primordial field (at 100 GHz) is P < 2.6x10^{-2}. This corresponds to a degenerate constraint on the photon-scalar coupling strength, g, and the magnitude of the primordial magnetic field. Taking the upper bound on the strength of the primordial magnetic field derived from the CMB power spectra, B < 5.0x10^{-9}G, this would imply an upper bound on the photon-scalar coupling strength in the range g < 7.14x10^{-13}GeV^{-1} to g < 9.20x10^{-14}GeV^{-1}, depending on the power spectrum of the primordial magnetic field.