Axion Constraints from White Dwarf Cooling in 47 Tucanae

TL;DR

This study uses white dwarf cooling data from 47 Tucanae to set new constraints on axion-electron coupling, improving previous bounds and challenging hints of axions from Galactic white dwarf observations.

Contribution

The paper introduces stellar evolution models incorporating axion bremsstrahlung to constrain axion-electron coupling using globular cluster white dwarf data.

Findings

No evidence of axion emission in white dwarf cooling

New upper bound on axion-electron coupling: $g_{aee} \,\leq 0.81 \times 10^{-13}$

Excludes axion parameter range suggested by Galactic white dwarf anomalies

Abstract

We analyse the cooling of white dwarfs in the globular cluster 47 Tucanae to look for evidence of axion emission affecting the rate of white dwarf cooling. If axions exist and couple to electrons, then axions could be produced at an appreciable rate in the electron-degenerate core of a white dwarf through axion bremsstrahlung from electrons. The emission of these axions would provide an additional cooling mechanism for white dwarfs that would affect the cooling rate, and hints of axions have been suggested based on observations of anomalous cooling reported for white dwarfs in the Galactic disc and halo. We performed stellar evolution simulations of white dwarf cooling that accounted for the additional energy loss due to axion bremsstrahlung from electrons, producing a suite of white dwarf cooling models for different values of the axion-electron coupling constant, as well as the white dwarf mass and envelope thickness. These cooling models are compared to observations of white dwarfs in 47 Tucanae from the Hubble Space Telescope through an unbinned likelihood analysis. The optimal model found by this analysis corresponds to the case of no axion emission with a thick white dwarf envelope, and we find a new bound on the axion-electron coupling of $g_{aee} \leq 0.81 \times 10^{-13}$ at 95% confidence level. This improves upon the previous white dwarf cooling bound for this coupling and excludes the range of values favoured by the axion hints from the anomalous cooling of Galactic white dwarfs.