Axion dark matter-induced echo of supernova remnants

Abstract

Axions are a theoretically promising dark matter (DM) candidate. In the presence of radiation from bright astrophysical sources at radio frequencies, nonrelativistic DM axions can undergo stimulated decay to two nearly back-to-back photons, meaning that bright sources of radio waves will have a counterimage ("gegenschein") in nearly the exact opposite spatial direction. The counterimage will be spectrally distinct from backgrounds, taking the form of a narrow radio line centered at $\nu =m_a/4\pi$ with a width determined by Doppler broadening in the DM halo, $\Delta \nu /\nu \sim 10^{-3}$. In this work, we show that the axion decay-induced echoes of supernova remnants may be bright enough to be detectable. Their non-detection may be able to set the strongest limits to date on axion DM in the $\sim 1-10\mu$eV mass range where there are gaps in coverage from existing experiments.

15 pages, 5 figures. V2 updated to match published version; conclusions unchanged

References in corpus (16)

• The Five-Hundred-Meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) Project
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• Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) Pathfinder
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• Piezoelectrically Tuned Multimode Cavity Search for Axion Dark Matter
• All-sky Galactic radiation at 45 MHz and spectral index between 45 and 408 MHz
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• The Distance to SS433/W50 and its Interaction with the ISM
• The Radio Luminosity-Risetime Function of Core-Collapse Supernovae
• Small-Scale X-ray Variability in the Cassiopeia A Supernova Remnant
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• Axion Gegenschein: Probing Back-scattering of Astrophysical Radio Sources Induced by Dark Matter

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Detecting Axion Dark Matter with Black Hole Polarimetry
• Warm and Fuzzy Dark Matter: Free Streaming of Wave Dark Matter
• Axion Echos from the Supernova Graveyard
• Listening for echo from the stimulated axion decay with the 21 CentiMeter Array
• On the Galactic radio signal from stimulated decay of axion dark matter
• Echoes in multi-ALP scenarios