Shimmering gravitons in the gamma-ray sky [HEAP]

http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.11222


What is the highest energy at which gravitons can be observed? We address this question by studying graviton-to-photon conversion – the inverse-Gertsenshtein effect – in the magnetic field of the Milky Way. We find that above $\sim 1~\mbox{PeV}$ the effective photon mass grows large enough to quench the conversion rate. The induced photon flux is comparable to the sensitivity of LHAASO to a diffuse $\gamma$-ray background, but only for graviton abundances of order $\Omega_{\text{gw}} h^2_0 \sim 1$. In the future, owing to a better understanding of $\gamma$-ray backgrounds, larger effective areas and longer observation times, sub-PeV shimmering gravitons with a realistic abundance of $\Omega_{\text{gw}} h^2_0 \sim 0.01$ could be detected. We show that this is achieved in a cosmologically-motivated scenario of post-recombination superheavy dark matter decay. Therefore, the sub-PeV range might be the ultimate energy frontier at which gravitons can be observed.

Read this paper on arXiv…

S. Ramazanov, R. Samanta, G. Trenkler, et. al.
Tue, 25 Apr 23
14/72

Comments: 16 pages, 2 figures