On the applicability of the Landau-Zener formula to axion-photon conversion

DOI10.1088/1475-7516/2023/04/021MaRDI QIDQ6044348zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors M. C. David Marsh

Publication date 17 May 2023

Published in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Copyright license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.02700

zbMATH Keywords

axionsmagnetic fields

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Oscillation, zeros of solutions, mean value theorems, etc. in context of PDEs (35B05) Electromagnetic theory (general) (78A25) Other elementary particle theory in quantum theory (81V25) Quantum optics (81V80) Statistical mechanics of plasmas (82D10) Approximation procedures, weak fields in general relativity and gravitational theory (83C25)

Abstract: Axions and photons resonantly interconvert in regions where the plasma frequency approximately equals the axion mass. This process is directly analogous to an avoided level crossing in quantum mechanics, for which the celebrated Landau-Zener (LZ) formula provides a simple, non-perturbative solution for the conversion probability. The LZ formula is commonly used in studies of axion-photon conversion; however, in this context, it relies on the assumption that the magnetic field variation is small compared to variations of the plasma frequency, which is frequently not the case in real plasmas. We derive a generalised version of the LZ formula by allowing the boundaries to be located at a scale that is similar to the inhomogeneities. We find that the LZ formula fails when the oscillation range is small compared to the resonance region. This failure is more severe in the adiabatic limit, when the plasma frequency varies slowly, resulting in a conversion probability that is not maximal as opposed to a naive application of the LZ formula. Moreover, we consider circumstances where the generalised LZ formula does not apply and present an alternative semi-classical approximation with complementary regime of validity.

Cites work

• Atomi orientati in campo magnetico variabile
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Cited in

(1)

• Axion-photon conversion in 3D media and astrophysical plasmas

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