A RADIO TELESCOPE SEARCH FOR AXIONS

The axion is a hypothetical elementary particle and a cold dark matter candidate. It could dominate the potential wells of most astrophysical objects. Axions spontaneously decay into nearly monochromatic microwave photons. We present results from a radio telescope search for these axion decay photons of mass ma = 298-363 μeV in Local Group dwarf galaxies. We report a limit on the axion-to-two-photon coupling constant gaγγ > 1.0 × 10-9 GeV-1.