KIPAC Seminar: Galactic Axion Factories: Astrophysical Populations and Signals for Axion Searches

Abstract: Axions and axion-like particles (ALPs) can have weak couplings to the Standard Model which may be magnified in extreme astrophysical environments, providing unique and exciting pathways toward observational signatures. In this talk, I will discuss several exciting ways in which these can manifest. This includes the novel idea of how axion production at the galactic stellar population level can be used as a particularly powerful probe for axion physics. In particular, I will highlight our various searches for axions coupled to photons, electrons, and nucleons in various stellar populations which can then convert to detectable hard X-rays via galactic magnetic fields. I will then discuss further extensions of these ideas in more recent works, highlighting compact objects such as magnetic white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes, and how these diverse astrophysical environments provide mechanisms to continue pushing the boundaries on axion parameter space.