“We have great factor to suspect that brand-new physics beyond the basic design may be prowling simply around the corner,” stated Dev, first author of the study in Physical Review Letters and a faculty fellow of the universitys McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences.Insights From Neutron Star MergersWhen 2 neutron stars combine, a hot, thick residue is formed for a brief period of time. “The residue gets much hotter than the private stars for about a 2nd before settling down into a bigger neutron star or a black hole, depending on the preliminary masses,” he said.Doomed neutron stars whirl toward their demise in this animation, which represents phenomena observed up to 9 days after GW170817.”Extreme astrophysical environments, like neutron star mergers, provide a new window of opportunity in our quest for dark sector particles like axions, which may hold the secret to comprehending the missing 85% of all the matter in the universe,” Dev said.Reference: “First Constraints on the Photon Coupling of Axionlike Particles from Multimessenger Studies of the Neutron Star Merger GW170817” by P. S. Bhupal Dev, Jean-François Fortin, Steven P. Harris, Kuver Sinha and Yongchao Zhang, 5 March 2024, Physical Review Letters.DOI: 10.1103/ PhysRevLett.132.101003 This work was supported by the Department of Energys Office of Science.
