We revise the bound from the supernova SN1987A on the coupling of ultralight axion-like particles (ALPs) to photons. In a core-collapse supernova, ALPs would be emitted via the Primakoff process, and eventually convert into gamma rays in the magnetic field of the Milky Way. The lack of a gamma-ray signal in the GRS instrument of the SMM satellite in coincidence with the observation of the neutrinos emitted from SN1987A therefore provides a strong bound on their coupling to photons. Due to the large uncertainty associated with the current bound, we revise this argument, based on state-of-the-art physical inputs both for the supernova models and for the Milky-Way magnetic field. Furthermore, we provide major amendments, such as the consistent treatment of nucleon-degeneracy effects and of the reduction of the nuclear masses in the hot and dense nuclear medium of the supernova. With these improvements, we obtain a new upper limit on the photon-ALP coupling: g aγ 5.3 × 10 −12 GeV −1 , for m a 4.4 × 10 −10 eV , and we also give its dependence at larger ALP masses m a . Moreover, we discuss how much the Fermi-LAT satellite experiment could improve this bound, should a close-enough supernova explode in the near future.

We study the impact of axion emission in simulations of massive star explosions, as an additional source of energy loss complementary to the standard neutrino emission. The inclusion of this channel shortens the cooling time of the nascent protoneutron star and hence the duration of the neutrino signal. We treat the axion-matter coupling strength as a free parameter to study its impact on the protoneutron star evolution as well as on the neutrino signal. We furthermore analyze the observability of the enhanced cooling in current and next-generation underground neutrino detectors, showing that values of the axion mass m a ≳ 8 × 10 −3 eV can be probed. Therefore a galactic supernova neutrino observation would provide a valuable possibility to probe axion masses in a range within reach of the planned helioscope experiment, the International Axion Observatory.

The standard axion-like particle explanation of the observed large-scale coherent orientations of quasar polarisation vectors is ruled out by the recent measurements of vanishing of circular polarisation. We introduce a more general wave-packet formalism and show that, although decoherence effects between waves of different frequencies can reduce significantly the amount of circular polarisation, the axion-like particle hypothesis is disfavoured given the bandwidth with which part of the observations were performed. Finally, we show that a more sophisticated model of extragalactic fields does not lead to an alignment of polarisations.

We show that the parameter space of axion-like particles can be severly constrained using high-precision measurements of quasar polarisations. Robust limits are derived from the measured bounds on optical circular polarisation and from the distribution of linear polarisations of quasars. As an outlook, this technique can be improved by the observation of objects located behind clusters of galaxies, using upcoming space-borne X-ray polarimeters.

Abstract.We present results showing that, thanks to axion-photon mixing in external magnetic fields, it is actually possible to produce an effect similar to the one needed to explain the large-scale coherent orientations of quasar polarisation vectors in visible light that have been observed in some regions of the sky.