Shock Revival in Core-collapse Supernovae Assisted by Heavy Axion-like Particles

TL;DR

This paper investigates how heavy axion-like particles (ALPs) could influence core-collapse supernova explosions by potentially reviving stalled shocks, offering insights into physics beyond the standard model.

Contribution

It provides the first consistent calculation of ALP emission and backreaction effects on supernova dynamics, identifying conditions under which ALPs can revive the shock.

Findings

ALPs with coupling g_{ag}~10^{-9} GeV^{-1} and mass 40-400 MeV can revive the shock.

Most models predict more energetic explosions than observed supernovae.

Constraints on ALPs can be derived, but further long-term simulations are needed.

Abstract

Axion-like particles (ALPs) are a class of hypothetical pseudoscalar particles which feebly interact with ordinary matter. The hot plasma of core-collapse supernovae is a possible laboratory to explore physics beyond the standard model including ALPs. Once produced, some of the ALPs can be absorbed by the supernova matter and affect energy transfer. In this study, we calculate the ALP emission in core-collapse supernovae and the backreaction on supernova dynamics consistently. It is found that the stalled bounce shock can be revived if the coupling between ALPs and photons is as high as g_{ag}~10^{-9} GeV^{-1} and the ALP mass is 40-400 MeV. Most of the models result in more energetic explosions than the average observed supernova. While this can be used to place constraints on those ALPs, long-term simulations across multiple progenitors need to be further investigated to place robust limits.