Hunting Axion Dark Matter with Protoplanetary Disk Polarimetry

Tazaki, Ryo; Toma, Kenji; Fujita, Tomohiro

Japan, Switzerland

Abstract

We find that the polarimetric observations of protoplanetary disks are useful to search for ultralight axion dark matter. Axion dark matter predicts the rotation of the linear polarization plane of propagating light, and protoplanetary disks are ideal targets to observe it. We show that a recent observation puts the tightest constraint on the axion-photon coupling constant for an axion mass m ≲10-21 eV .

2019 Physical Review Letters
Gaia 57