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Smoke and mirrors: Neutron star internal heating constraints on mirror matter

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arxiv 2105.09951 v2 pith:GVYXMLUE submitted 2021-05-20 hep-ph astro-ph.HEastro-ph.SRhep-ex

Smoke and mirrors: Neutron star internal heating constraints on mirror matter

classification hep-ph astro-ph.HEastro-ph.SRhep-ex
keywords neutronmirrorstarneutronsheatingmatterneutron--mirror-neutronaddress
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved
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Mirror sectors have been proposed to address the problems of dark matter, baryogenesis, and the neutron lifetime anomaly. In this work we study a new, powerful probe of mirror neutrons: neutron star temperatures. When neutrons in the neutron star core convert to mirror neutrons during collisions, the vacancies left behind in the nucleon Fermi seas are refilled by more energetic nucleons, releasing immense amounts of heat in the process. We derive a new constraint on the allowed strength of neutron--mirror-neutron mixing from observations of the coldest (sub-40,000 Kelvin) neutron star, PSR 2144$-$3933. Our limits compete with laboratory searches for neutron--mirror-neutron transitions but apply to a range of mass splittings between the neutron and mirror neutron that is 19 orders of magnitude larger. This heating mechanism, also pertinent to other neutron disappearance channels such as exotic neutron decay, provides a compelling physics target for upcoming ultraviolet, optical and infrared telescopes to study thermal emissions of cold neutron stars.

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