Axions and the white dwarf luminosity function

J. Isern, Silvia Catalan, E. Garcia-Berro, S. Torres

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    50 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    The evolution of white dwarfs can be described as a simple cooling process. Recently, it has been possible to determine with an unprecedented precision their luminosity function, that is, the number of stars per unit volume and luminosity interval. Since the shape of the bright branch of this function is only sensitive to the average cooling rate, we use this property to check the possible existence of axions, a proposed but not yet detected weakly interacting particle. We show here that the inclusion of the axion emissivity in the evolutionary models of white dwarfs noticeably improves the agreement between the theoretical calculations and the observational white dwarf luminosity function, thus providing the first positive indication that axions could exist. Our results indicate that the best fit is obtained for m(a)cos(2) beta similar or equal to 2 - 6 meV, where m. is the mass of the axion and cos(2)beta is a free parameter, and that values larger than 10 meV are clearly excluded.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number012005
    Pages (from-to)-
    Number of pages8
    JournalJournal of Physics: Conference Series
    Volume172
    Issue number1
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2009
    Event16th European White Dwarfs Workshop - Barcelona
    Duration: 30 Jun 20084 Jul 2008

    Keywords

    • CP CONSERVATION
    • GALACTIC DISK
    • DENSE STARS
    • AGE
    • MASS
    • BREMSSTRAHLUNG
    • INVARIANCE
    • G117-B15A
    • UNIVERSE
    • LIMITS

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