A portion of light scalar dark matter, especially axions, may organize into gravitationally bound clumps (stars) and be present in large number in the galaxy today. It is therefore of utmost interest to determine if there are novel observational signatures of this scenario. Work has shown that for moderately large axion-photon couplings, such clumps can undergo parametric resonance into photons, for clumps above a critical mass $M^{\star}_c$ determined precisely by some of us in Ref. [1]. In order to obtain a clump above the critical mass in the galaxy today would require mergers. In this work we perform full 3-dimensional simulations of pairs of axion clumps and determine the conditions under which mergers take place through the emission of scalar waves, including analyzing head-on and non-head-on collisions, phase dependence, and relative velocities. Consistent with other work in the literature, we find that the final mass from the merger $M^{\star}_{\text{final}}\approx 0.7(M^{\star}_1+M^{\star}_2)$ is larger than each of the original clump masses (for $M^{\star}_1\sim M^{\star}_2$). Hence, it is possible for sub-critical mass clumps to merge and become super-critical and therefore undergo parametric resonance into photons. We find that mergers are expected to be kinematically allowed in the galaxy today for high Peccei-Quinn scales, which is strongly suggested by unification ideas, although the collision rate is small. While mergers can happen for axions with lower Peccei-Quinn scales due to statistical fluctuations in relative velocities, as they have a high collision rate. We estimate the collision and merger rates within the Milky Way galaxy today. We find that a merger leads to a flux of energy on earth that can be appreciable and we mention observational search strategies.
The QCD axion and an axion-like particle (ALP) are compelling candidates of dark matter. For the QCD axion, it is known that when the Peccei-Quinn (PQ) symmetry is spontaneously broken after inflation, the large initial fluctuation can lead to axion clump formation. On the other hand, when the symmetry is already broken during inflation, it has been believed that the axion clump formation does not occur due to the small amplitude of the initial axion fluctuation. We revisit this prevailing understanding, considering both the QCD axion and an ALP. We find that for the QCD axion, the clump forma…
Axion is a popular candidate for dark matter particles. Axionic dark matter may form Bose-Einstein condensate and may be gravitationally bound to form axion clumps. Under the presence of electromagnetic waves with frequency $ω=m_{a}/2$, where $m_{a}$ is the axion mass, a resonant enhancement may occur, causing an instability of the axion clumps. With analytical and numerical approaches, we study the resonant instability of axionic dark matter clumps with infinite homogeneous mass distribution, as well as distribution with a finite boundary. After taking realistic astrophysical environments int…
Recently there has been interest in the physical properties of dark matter axion condensates. Due to gravitational attraction and self-interactions, they can organize into spatial localized clumps, whose properties were examined by us in Refs. [1, 2]. Since the axion condensate is coherently oscillating, it can conceivably lead to parametric resonance of photons, leading to exponential growth in photon occupancy number and subsequent radio wave emission. We show that while resonance always exists for spatially homogeneous condensates, its existence for a spatially localized clump condensate de…
The QCD axion acquires the potential through the non-perturbative effect of the QCD matters around the QCD phase transition. During this period, the direct interaction between the axion and the QCD matters sets in. Focusing on the impact of this direct interaction, we propose two scenarios where the fluctuation of the axion can rapidly grow, potentially leading to the formation of axion miniclusters even if the Peccei-Quinn (PQ) symmetry was already broken during inflation. The first scenario assumes that the primordial curvature perturbation at the horizon scale during the QCD epoch was signi…
The axion objects such as axion mini-clusters and axion clouds around spinning black holes induce parametric resonances of electromagnetic waves through the axion-photon interaction. In particular, it has been known that the resonances from the axion with the mass around $10^{-6}$eV may explain the observed fast radio bursts (FRBs). Here we argue that similar bursts of high frequency gravitational waves, which we call the fast gravitational wave bursts (FGBs), are generated from axion clumps with the presence of gravitational Chern-Simons (CS) coupling. The typical frequency is half of the axi…
We study the propagation of light in the presence of a parity-violating coupling between photons and axion-like particles (ALPs). Naively, this interaction could lead to a split of light rays into two separate beams of different polarization chirality and with different refraction angles. However, by using the eikonal method we explicitly show that this is not the case and that ALP clumps do not produce any spatial birefringence. This happens due to non-trivial variations of the photon's frequency and wavevector, which absorb time-derivatives and gradients of the ALP field. We argue that these…
Recently there has been much interest in the spatial distribution of light scalar dark matter, especially axions, throughout the universe. When the local gravitational interactions between the scalar modes are sufficiently rapid, it can cause the field to re-organize into a BEC of gravitationally bound clumps. While these clumps are stable when only gravitation is included, the picture is complicated by the presence of the axion's attractive self-interactions, which can potentially cause the clumps to collapse. Here we perform a detailed stability analysis to determine under what conditions th…
Axion clumps in an external magnetic field can emit electromagnetic radiation which causes them to decay. In the presence of a plasma, such radiation can become resonant if the clump frequency matches the plasma frequency. Typically, the decay or back-reaction of the clump is ignored in the literature when analyzing such radiation. In this paper we present a self consistent, semi-analytic approach which captures axion back-reaction using energy conservation. We find that inclusion of back-reaction changes the clump frequency over time enabling clumps with a range of different initial frequenci…
A fraction of light scalar dark matter, especially axions, may organize into Bose-Einstein condensates, gravitationally bound clumps, "boson stars", and be present in large number in galactic halos today. We compute the expected number of gravitational microlensing events of clumps composed of the ordinary QCD axion and axion-like-particles and derive microlensing constraints from the EROS-2 survey and the Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam observation. We perform a detailed lensing calculation, including the finite lens and source size effects in our analysis. We constrain the axion mass in terms of th…
Axions and axion-like particles (ALPs) are some of the best-motivated dark matter (DM) candidates. Under certain circumstances, large axion fluctuations in the early universe can collapse to form dense configurations called axion clumps. The densest axion clumps are metastable states known as oscillons. In this paper we propose a new class of observables that exploit the axion's coupling to photons. As a result of this coupling an axion clump acts like an inhomogeneous refractive optical medium -- a lens -- that causes anomalous dispersion of incident electromagnetic waves. The dispersion of e…
Gravitationally bound clumps of dark matter axions in the form of 'miniclusters' or even denser 'axion stars' can generate strong radio signals through axion-photon conversion when encountering highly magnetised neutron star magnetospheres. We systematically study encounters of axion clumps with neutron stars and characterise the axion infall, conversion and the subsequent propagation of the photons. We show that the high density and low escape velocity of the axion clumps lead to strong, narrow, and temporally characteristic transient radio lines with an expected duration varying from seconds…
The rate of energy exchange of spatially localized and gravitationally bound axion configurations with electromagnetic radiation is investigated in presence of strong static magnetic field. Fully analytic treatment is achieved based on variationally optimized separable spatio-temporal clump profiles. For dilute axion stars the equation of the energy variation is reinterpreted as a rate equation of the axion number. Its solutions hints to an asymptotic $\sim t^{1/5}$ increase of the clump size.
In the next few years Advanced LIGO (aLIGO) may see gravitational waves (GWs) from thousands of black hole (BH) mergers. This marks the beginning of a new precision tool for physics. Here we show how to search for new physics beyond the standard model using this tool, in particular the QCD axion in the mass range ma ~ 10^-14 to 10^-10 eV. Axions (or any bosons) in this mass range cause rapidly rotating BHs to shed their spin into a large cloud of axions in atomic Bohr orbits around the BH, through the effect of superradiance (SR). This results in a gap in the mass vs. spin distribution of BHs …
Supernovae and cooling neutron stars have long been used to constrain the properties of axions, such as their mass and interactions with nucleons and other Standard Model particles. We investigate the prospects of using neutron star mergers as a similar location where axions can be probed in the future. We examine the impact axions would have on mergers, considering both the possibility that they free-stream through the dense nuclear matter and the case where they are trapped. We calculate the mean free path of axions in merger conditions, and find that they would free-stream through the merge…
The observation of gravitational waves from a binary neutron star merger by LIGO/VIRGO and the associated electromagnetic counterpart provides a high precision test of orbital dynamics, and therefore a new and sensitive probe of extra forces and new radiative degrees of freedom. Axions are one particularly well-motivated class of extensions to the Standard Model leading to new forces and sources of radiation, which we focus on in this paper. Using an effective field theory (EFT) approach, we calculate the first post-Newtonian corrections to the orbital dynamics, radiated power, and gravitation…
We investigate the bursts of electromagnetic and scalar radiation resulting from the collision, and merger of oscillons made from axion-like particles using 3+1 dimensional lattice simulations of the coupled axion-gauge field system. The radiation into photons is suppressed before the merger. However, it becomes the dominant source of energy loss after the merger if a resonance condition is satisfied. Conversely, the radiation in scalar waves is dominant during initial merger phase but suppressed after the merger. The backreaction of scalar and electromagnetic radiation is included in our simu…
In the context of structure formation with ultralight axion dark matter, we offer an alternative explanation for the mass relation of solitonic cores and their host halos observed in numerical simulations. Our argument is based entirely on the mass gain that occurs during major mergers of binary cores and largely independent of the initial core-halo mass relation assigned to hosts that have just collapsed. We find a relation between the halo mass $M_h$ and corresponding core mass $M_c$, $M_c\propto M_h^{2β-1}$, where $(1-β)$ is the core mass loss fraction. Following the evolution of core masse…
A non-negligible fraction of the QCD axion dark matter may form gravitationally bound Bose Einstein condensates, which are commonly known as axion stars or axion clumps. Such astrophysical objects have been recently proposed as the cause for the single candidate event reported by Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) microlensing search in the Andromeda galaxy. Depending on the breaking scale of the Peccei-Quinn symmetry and the details of the dark matter scenario, QCD axion clumps may form via gravitational condensation during radiation domination, in the dense core of axion miniclusters, or within …
The recently proposed supersymmetric $A_4$ model of the neutrino mass matrix is modified to merge with a previously proposed axionic solution of the strong CP problem. The resulting model has only one input scale, i.e. that of $A_4$ symmetry breaking, which determines both the seesaw neutrino mass scale and the axion decay constant. It also solves the $μ$ problem and conserves R parity automatically.
Evolution of inhomogeneities in the axion field around the QCD epoch is studied numerically, including for the first time important non-linear effects. It is found that perturbations on scales corresponding to causally disconnected regions at $T \sim 1 \, {\rm GeV}$ can lead to very dense axion clumps, with present density $ρ_a \ga 10^{-8}\,{\rm g \, cm^{-3}}$. This is high enough for the collisional $2a \rightarrow 2a$ process to lead to Bose--Einstein relaxation in the gravitationally bound clumps of axions, forming Bose stars.
Axions are increasingly favoured as a candidate particle for the dark matter in galaxies, since they satisfy the observational requirements for cold dark matter and are theoretically well motivated. Fluctuations in the axion field give rise to stable localised overdensities known as axion stars, which, for the most massive, compact cases, are potential neutron star mimickers. In principle, there are no fundamental arguments against the multi-messenger observations of GW170817/GRB170817A/AT2017gfo arising from the merger of a neutron star with a neutron star mimicker, rather than from a binary …
Axion--photon interactions can lead to an enhancement of the electromagnetic field by parametric resonance in the presence of a cold axion background, for modes with a frequency close to half the axion mass. In this paper, we study the role of the axion momentum dispersion as well as the effects of a background gravitational potential, which can detune the resonance due to gravitational redshift. We show, by analytical as well as numerical calculations, that the resonance leads to an exponential growth of the photon field only if (a) the axion momentum spread is smaller than the inverse resona…
After an introduction to the QCD phase diagram, the nuclear equations of state, and neutron star mergers, I discuss three projects related to transport and nuclear matter in neutron star mergers. The first is the nature of beta equilibrium in the portion of a merger that is transparent to neutrinos. We calculate the weak interaction (Urca) rates and find that the beta equilibrium condition needs to be modified by adding an additional chemical potential, which changes slightly the particle content in neutrino-transparent beta equilibrium. Secondly, we calculate the bulk viscosity in neutrino-tr…
Axion-like particles (ALP) can in principle be produced in very hot and dense astrophysical environments, escape from the extreme object where such conditions are met, and then be converted in gamma--rays in the magnetic fields intervening between the event and the Earth. This process potentially offers a new window on both the physics of the axions, and the inner working of the astrophysical objects where they are produced. Interestingly, while this process has been studied for core--collapse supernovae and other extreme astrophysical events, no estimate exists for Neutron Star Mergers, objec…
The behavior of light scalar dark matter has been a subject of much interest recently as it can lead to interesting small scale behavior. In particular, this can lead to the formation of gravitationally bound clumps for these light scalars, including axions. In Ref. [1] we analyzed the behavior of these clumps, assuming spherical symmetry, allowing for both attractive and repulsive self-interactions. There is a maximum allowed mass for the clumps in the case of attractive interactions, and a minimum radius for the clumps in the case of repulsive interactions, which is saturated at large mass. …
We review topics in searches for axion-like-particles (ALPs), covering material that is complementary to other recent reviews. The first half of our review covers ALPs in the extreme environments of neutron star cores, the magnetospheres of highly magnetized neutron stars (magnetars), and in neutron star mergers. The focus is on possible signals of ALPs in the photon spectrum of neutron stars and gravitational wave/electromagnetic signals from neutron star mergers. We then review recent developments in laboratory-produced ALP searches, focusing mainly on accelerator-based facilities including …
The QCD axion is a hypothetical particle motivated by the Strong CP problem of particle physics. One of the primary ways in which its existence can be inferred is via its function as an additional cooling channel in stars, with some of the strongest constraints coming from the supernova observation SN1987A. Multimessenger observations of binary neutron star mergers (such as those of GW170817, AT2017gfo, and GRB170817A) may provide another scenario in which such constraints could be obtained. In particular, the axion could potentially alter the lifetime, the ejection of material, and the emitte…
In this short comment, we notice that the model-independent axion contribution to the graviton mass at just outside the Schwarzschild radius is completely negligible in GW150914. The model-independent axion contribution to the graviton mass at the order $10^{-22}\,$eV might be possible for merger of black holes of mass of order $2\times 10^{14}\,$kg.
Axions are a potential dark matter candidate, which may condense and form self gravitating compact objects, called axion stars (ASs). In this work, we study for the first time head-on collisions of relativistic ASs with black holes (BHs) and neutron stars (NSs). In the case of BH-AS mergers we find that, in general, the largest scalar clouds are produced by mergers of low compactness ASs and spinning BHs. Although in most of the cases which we study the majority of the mass is absorbed by the BH within a short time after the merger, in favourable cases the remaining cloud surrounding the final…
Axions may make a significant contribution to the dark matter of the universe. It has been suggested that these dark matter axions may condense into localized clumps, called "axion stars." In this paper we argue that collisions of dilute axion stars with neutron stars, of the type known as "magnetars," may be the origin of most of the observed fast radio bursts. This idea is a variation of an idea originally proposed by Iwazaki. However, instead of the surface effect of Iwazaki, we propose a perhaps stronger volume effect caused by the induced time dependent electric dipole moment of neutrons.
If dark matter is mainly composed of axions, the density distribution can be nonuniformly distributed, being clumpy instead. By solving the Einstein-Klein-Gordon system of a scalar field with the potential energy density of an axionlike particle, we obtain the maximum mass of the self-gravitating system made of axions, called axion stars. The collision of axion stars with neutron stars may release the energy of axions due to the conversion of axions into photons in the presence of the neutron star's magnetic field. We estimate the energy release and show that it should be much less than previo…
We propose a new mechanism for the formation of dark matter clumps in the radiation era. We assume that a light scalar field is decoupled from matter and oscillates harmonically around its vacuum expectation value. We include self-interactions and consider the nonrelativistic regime. The scalar dynamics are described by a fluid approach where the fluid pressure depends on both quantum and self-interaction effects. When the squared speed of sound of the scalar fluid becomes negative, an instability arises and the fluctuations of the scalar energy-density field start growing. They eventually bec…
Light axion fields, if they exist, can be sourced by neutron stars due to their coupling to nuclear matter, and play a role in binary neutron star mergers. We report on a search for such axions by analysing the gravitational waves from the binary neutron star inspiral GW170817. We find no evidence of axions in the sampled parameter space. The null result allows us to impose constraints on axions with masses below $10^{-11} {\rm eV}$ by excluding the ones with decay constants ranging from $1.6\times10^{16} {\rm GeV}$ to $10^{18} {\rm GeV}$ at $3σ$ confidence level. Our analysis provides the fir…
Dark matter axion condensates may experience stimulated decays into photon pairs. This effect has been often interpreted as a parametric resonance of photons from the axion-photon coupling, leading to an exponential growth of the photon occupation number in a narrow instability band. Most of the previous literature does not consider the possible evolution of the axion field due to the photon growth. We revisit this effect presenting a mean field solution of the axion-photon kinetic equations, in terms of number of photons and pair correlations. We study the limit of no axion depletion, recover…
Coherent oscillation of axions or axion-like particles may give rise to long-lived clumps, called axion stars, because of the attractive gravitational force or its self-interaction. Such a kind of configuration has been extensively studied in the context of oscillons without the effect of gravity, and its stability can be understood by an approximate conservation of particle number in a non-relativistic effective field theory (EFT). We extend this analysis to the case with gravity to discuss the longevity of axion stars and clarify the EFT expansion scheme in terms of gradient energy and Newto…
We propose a multi-messenger probe of QCD axion Dark Matter based on observations of black hole-neutron star binary inspirals. It is suggested that a dense Dark Matter spike may grow around intermediate mass black holes ($10^{3}-10^{5} \mathrm{\,M_{\odot}}$). The presence of such a spike produces two unique effects: a distinct phase shift in the gravitational wave strain during the inspiral and an enhancement of the radio emission due to the resonant axion-photon conversion occurring in the neutron star magnetosphere throughout the inspiral and merger. Remarkably, the observation of the gravit…
The superradiant instability can lead to the generation of extremely dense axion clouds around rotating black holes. We show that, despite the long lifetime of the QCD axion with respect to spontaneous decay into photon pairs, stimulated decay becomes significant above a minimum axion density and leads to extremely bright lasers. The lasing threshold can be attained for axion masses $μ\gtrsim 10^{-8}\ \mathrm{eV}$, which implies superradiant instabilities around spinning primordial black holes with mass $\lesssim 0.01M_\odot$. Although the latter are expected to be non-rotating at formation, a…
We present a solution of the Schrödinger-Poisson system based on the WKB ansatz for the wave function. In this way we obtain a description of a gravitationally bound clump of axion dark matter by a superposition of energy eigenstates with random phases. It can be applied to any self-consistent pair of radial density distribution and phase space density $f(E)$ related by Eddington's formula. We adopt this as a model for axion miniclusters in our galaxy and use it to study the mass loss due to a star encounter by using standard perturbation theory methods known from quantum mechanics. Finally, w…
Most matter in the Universe is invisible and unknown, which is called dark matter. A candidate of dark matter is axion, which is an ultra-light particle motivated as a solution for the CP problem. Axions form clouds in a galactic halo, amplify, and delay a part of gravitational waves propagating in the clouds. The Milky Way is surrounded by the dark matter halo composed of a number of axion patches. Thus, the characteristic secondary gravitational waves are always expected right after the reported gravitational-wave signals from compact binary mergers. In this paper, we derive a realistic ampl…
We explore the dynamics of boson stars in the presence of axionic couplings through nonlinear evolutions of Einstein's field equations. We show that, for large axionic couplings, isolated boson stars become unstable, and decay via a large burst of electromagnetic radiation, becoming less massive and more dilute. Our full nonlinear results are in good agreement with flat-space estimates for the critical couplings. We then consider head-on collisions of sub-critical boson stars and study the electromagnetic and gravitational signal. Boson stars cluster around the critical point via interactions,…
The axion-like particles with ultralight mass ($\sim10^{-22}$eV) can be a possible candidate of dark matter, known as the fuzzy dark matter (FDM). These particles form Bose-Einstein condensate in the early Universe which can explain the dark matter density distribution in galaxies at the present time. We study the time evolution of ultralight axion-like field in the near region of a strong gravitational wave (GW) source, such as binary black hole merger. We show that GWs can lead to the generation of field excitations in a spherical shell about the source that eventually propagate out of the s…
In certain models of a QCD axion, finite density corrections to the axion potential can result in the axion being sourced by large dense objects. There are a variety of ways to test this phenomenon, but perhaps the most surprising effect is that the axion can mediate forces between neutron stars that can be as strong as gravity. These forces can be attractive or repulsive and their presence can be detected by Advanced LIGO observations of neutron star inspirals. By a numerical coincidence, axion forces between neutron stars with gravitational strength naturally have an associated length scale …
We calculate the axion emission rate from reactions involving thermal pions in matter encountered in supernovae and neutron star mergers, identify unique spectral features, and explore their implications for astrophysics and particle physics. We find that it is about 2-5 times larger than nucleon-nucleon bremsstrahlung, which in past studies was considered to be the dominant process. The axion spectrum is also found be much harder. Together, the larger rates and higher axion energies imply a stronger bound on the mass of the QCD axion, and better prospects for direct detection in a large under…
Recently there has been significant interest in the claim that dark matter axions gravitationally thermalize and form a Bose-Einstein condensate with cosmologically long-range correlation. This has potential consequences for galactic scale observations. Here we critically examine this claim. We point out that there is an essential difference between the thermalization and formation of a condensate due to repulsive interactions, which can indeed drive long-range order, and that due to attractive interactions, which can lead to localized Bose clumps (stars or solitons) that only exhibit short ra…
We investigate the production of photons from coherently oscillating, spatially localized clumps of axionic fields (oscillons and axion stars) in the presence of external electromagnetic fields. We delineate different qualitative behaviour of the photon luminosity in terms of an effective dimensionless coupling parameter constructed out of the axion-photon coupling, and field amplitude, oscillation frequency and radius of the axion star. For small values of this dimensionless coupling, we provide a general analytic formula for the dipole radiation field and the photon luminosity per solid angl…
LIGO-Virgo collaboration has found black holes as heavy as $M \sim 30M_\odot$ through the detections of the gravitational waves emitted during their mergers. Primordial black holes (PBHs) produced by inflation could be an origin of such events. While it is tempting to presume that these PBHs constitute all Dark Matter (DM), there exists a number of constraints for PBHs with $\mathcal{O} (10) M_\odot$ which contradict with the idea of PBHs as all DM. Also, it is known that weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) that is a common DM candidate is almost impossible to coexist with PBHs. These o…
