  The PVLAS signal has led to the proposal of many experiments searching for
light bosons coupled to photons. The coupling strength probed by these near
future searches is, however, far from the allowed region, if astrophysical
bounds apply. But the environmental conditions for the production of axion-like
particles in stars are very different from those present in laboratories. We
consider the case in which the coupling and the mass of an axion-like particle
depend on environmental conditions such as the temperature and matter density.
This can relax astrophysical bounds by several orders of magnitude, just enough
to allow for the PVLAS signal. This creates exciting possibilities for a
detection in near future experiments.
