Supernova Muons: New Constraints on Z′ Bosons, Axions and ALPs

Abstract

New light particles produced in supernovae can lead to additional energy loss and a consequent deficit in neutrino production in conflict with the neutrinos observed from Supernova 1987A (SN1987A). Contrary to the majority of previous SN1987A studies, we examine the impact of Z′ bosons, axions, and axion-like particles (ALPs) interacting with the muons produced in SN1987A. For the first time, we find constraints on generic Z′ bosons coupled to muons, and apply our results to particle models including gauged Lμ−Lτ number, $$ \mathrm{U}{(1)}_{L_{\mu }-{L}_{\tau }} $$ U 1 L μ − L τ , and gauged B − L number, U(1)B−L. We constrain Z′ bosons with masses up to about 250 − 500 MeV, and down to about 10−9 in Z′-muon coupling. We also extend previous work on axion-muon couplings by examining the importance of loop-level interactions, as well as performing calculations over a wider range of axion masses. We constrain muon-coupled axions from arbitrarily low masses up to about 200 − 500 MeV, with bounds extending down to axion-muon couplings of approximately 10−8 GeV−1. We conclude that supernovae broadly provide a sensitive probe of new lightly-coupled particles interacting with muons.

Ultralight scalars in leptonic observables

“…Plenty of works have recently studied the question of cooling by the emission of ultralight scalars in astrophysical scenarios [11,39,[43][44][45]. However, to the best of our knowledge, all of them consider axions or ALPs.…”

“…The coupling with muons has been recently studied in some works [39,43,44]. In this case the process ultimately used to set the contraint is neutrino production, clearly suppressed if energy is transported out of the supernova by scalars produced in µ + γ → µ + φ.…”

Supersymmetric gauged $$ \mathrm{U}{(1)}_{L_{\mu }-{L}_{\tau }} $$ model for electron and muon (g − 2) anomaly

“…In addition, the low mass Z which explains (g −2) µ are probed at the ongoing coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering experiments (CEνNS), e.g., COHERENT and Coherent CAPTAIN-Mills (CCM). The recent data from the LAr [42] and CsI [43] detectors at the COHERENT experiment provide important constraints alongside the existing constraints emerging from CCFR [44], Borexino [45], BaBaR [46], supernova [47] etc. on the Z mass and coupling.…”

Light, long-lived B − L gauge and Higgs bosons at the DUNE near detector

“…For completeness, we also present our calculated limits on K + → π + Z → πνν from E949 [55] and NA62 [56], which are however weaker than the limits from TEXONO, CHARM and NA62, as indi-JHEP07(2021)166 , BaBar (shaded cyan) [54], E949 (purple line) [55] and NA62 (orange line) [56], and BBN (shaded blue) [57] are also shown. The dark (solid) and faint (dashed) orange regions are respectively the conservative and aggressive SN1987A limits [58]. The gray band denotes the preferred region for muon g −2 anomaly at the 2σ C.L.…”

“…The supernova constraints (dark orange region/solid lines corresponding to conservative constraints, and faint orange region/dashed lines corresponding to less conservative) come from ref. [58] we direct the reader to this reference, as well as refs. [57,93,94] for more discussion on supernova luminosity constraints on U(1) B−L vector bosons and associated models.…”