The stellar remnants are neutron stars, the corpses that remain after massive stars collapse in on themselves.
These dead stars are so dense that their electrons collapse onto their protonshence, neutron star.
We could utilize this multimessenger study, this data, to probe some new physics beyond the Standard Model.
An artist’s depiction of a neutron star collision producing light and gravitational waves.Illustration:NSF/LIGO/Sonoma State University/A. Simonnet
Neutron stars are some of the densest objects in the universe, beaten only by black holes.
Unlike black holes, light can escape neutron stars, making them observable on the electromagnetic spectrum.
Through photon coalescence, axions would emerge from photons coming together in the intensely hot astrophysical environment and fusing.
We get a lot of photons from the sky.
So how do we really know that this photon signal is coming from the axion?
This is coming from a decay of the particle, versus astrophysical processes where the photons disappear from scattering.
So there is a difference in the spectrum.
We can analyze both the timing information and we can also analyze the spectral features.
And thats where we can disentangle these kinds of new physics signals from the standard astrophysical processes.
Later generations of the Dark Matter Radio will hunt axions.
And this will be complementary to the laboratory searches that are going on.
The hunt for axions is a lot like using a metal detector on a very, very large beach.
More often than not, physicists and astronomers are detecting nothing.
More:What Is Dark Matter and Why Hasnt Anyone Found It Yet?
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