Daily modulations and broadband strategy in axion searches. An application with CAST-CAPP detector

Abstract

It has been previously advocated that the presence of the daily and annual modulations of the axion flux on the Earth's surface may dramatically change the strategy of the axion searches. The arguments were based on the so-called Axion Quark Nugget (AQN) dark matter model which was originally put forward to explain the similarity of the dark and visible cosmological matter densities $\hat{I}{\text{c◯}}_{\mathrm{dark}}\sim \hat{I}{\text{c◯}}_{\mathrm{visible}}$. In this framework, the population of galactic axions with mass $10^{-6}\mathrm{eV}\lesssim m_a\lesssim 10^{-3}\mathrm{eV}$ and velocity $⟨v_a⟩\sim 10^{-3}c$ will be accompanied by axions with typical velocities $⟨v_a⟩\sim 0.6c$ emitted by AQNs. Furthermore, in this framework, it has also been argued that the AQN-induced axion daily modulation (in contrast with the conventional WIMP paradigm) could be as large as $(10-20)\%$, which represents the main motivation for the present investigation. We argue that the daily modulations along with the broadband detection strategy can be very useful tools for the discovery of such relativistic axions. The data from the CAST-CAPP detector have been used following such arguments. Unfortunately, due to the dependence of the amplifier chain on temperature-dependent gain drifts and other factors, we could not conclusively show the presence or absence of a dark sector-originated daily modulation. However, this proof of principle analysis procedure can serve as a reference for future studies.

Published version available Open Access in Phys. Rev. D at https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.111.082009