Probing Cosmic Axions through Resonant Emission and Absorption in Atomic Systems with Superradiance

Abstract

The $\mu$eV-mass axion is one of the most promising candidates for cold dark matter, and remains to be a well-motivated solution to the CP problem of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) via the Peccei-Quinn mechanism. In this paper, we propose a novel method to detect the dark-matter axions in our galaxy via the resonant emission $|\mathrm{e}⟩\to |\mathrm{g}⟩+\gamma +{\gamma }_{}^{\prime }+a$ (or absorption $a+|\mathrm{e}⟩\to |\mathrm{g}⟩+\gamma +{\gamma }_{}^{\prime }$) in an atomic system with superradiance, where $|\mathrm{e}⟩$ and $|\mathrm{g}⟩$ stand for the excited and ground energy levels of atoms, respectively. A similar process via $|\mathrm{e}⟩\to |\mathrm{g}⟩+\gamma +a$ (or $a+|\mathrm{e}⟩\to |\mathrm{g}⟩+\gamma$) is also put forward to probe the axion-electron coupling. For the nominal experimental setup assuming a background-free environment, most of the parameter space for typical QCD axion models can be covered with parahydrogen molecules or ytterbium atoms. However, the background in a realistic experimental setup remains to be a major issue that needs to be solved in future studies. Searching for better atomic or molecular candidates may be required for a bigger signal-to-noise ratio.

8 pages, 4 figures, published in PRD

References in corpus (13)

• Dielectric Haloscopes: A New Way to Detect Axion Dark Matter
• Physics potential of the International Axion Observatory (IAXO)
• Tunable axion plasma haloscopes
• A new experimental approach to probe QCD axion dark matter in the mass range above 40$\mu$eV
• Dielectric Haloscopes to Search for Axion Dark Matter: Theoretical Foundations
• Production and detection of an axion dark matter echo
• Laser induced fluorescence for axion dark matter detection: a feasibility study in YLiF${}_4$:Er${}^{3+}$
• Axion Induced Oscillating Electric Dipole Moments
• Observation of coherent two-photon emission from the first vibrationally-excited state of hydrogen molecules
• Solitons and Precision Neutrino Mass Spectroscopy
• Macro-coherent two photon and radiative neutrino pair emission
• Effects of initial spatial phase in radiative neutrino pair emission
• ADMX Status

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Unifying of Inflation with Early and Late Dark Energy Epochs in Axion $F(R)$ Gravity
• Geometric Inflation and Dark Energy with Axion $F(R)$ Gravity
• Aspects of Axion $F(R)$ Gravity
• Kinetic Axion $F(R)$ Gravity Inflation
• Effects of the Axion Through the Higgs Portal on Primordial Gravitational Waves During the Electroweak Breaking
• Probing Light Mediators in the Radiative Emission of Neutrino Pair
• Superradiant Searches for Dark Photons in Two Stage Atomic Transitions
• Generalised hydrogen interactions with $\text{CINCO}$: a window to new physics
• Probing Cosmic Neutrino Background through Parametric Fluorescence
• Measurement of cesium $8{}^2{P}_J\to 6{}^2{P}_{J^{\prime }}$ electric quadrupole transition probabilities using fluorescence spectroscopy