On the Evidence for Axion-like Particles from Active Galactic Nuclei

TL;DR

This study investigates the potential evidence for axion-like particles (ALPs) through luminosity correlations in active galactic nuclei, but finds no compelling evidence and suggests previous signals may be due to X-ray absorption.

Contribution

Extended previous analyses by using a larger sample of AGNs to test for ALPs, and found no significant evidence supporting their existence.

Findings

No compelling evidence for ALPs in the data

The previously reported signal may be due to X-ray absorption

Analysis of 320 AGNs across 18 luminosity combinations

Abstract

Burrage, Davis, and Shaw recently suggested exploiting the correlations between high and low energy luminosities of astrophysical objects to probe possible mixing between photons and axion-like particles (ALP) in magnetic field regions. They also presented evidence for the existence of ALP's by analyzing the optical/UV and X-ray monochromatic luminosities of AGNs. We extend their work by using the monochromatic luminosities of 320 unobscured Active Galactic Nuclei from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey/Xmm-Newton Quasar Survey (Young et al., 2009), which allows the exploration of 18 different combinations of optical/UV and X-ray monochromatic luminosities. However, we do not find compelling evidence for the existence of ALPs. Moreover, it appears that the signal reported by Burrage et al. is more likely due to X-ray absorption rather than to photon-ALP oscillation.