TY - JOUR
T1 - Nonclassicality of axionlike dark matter through gravitational self-interactions
AU - Kopp, Michael
AU - Fragkos, Vasileios
AU - Pikovski, Igor
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 authors. Published by the American Physical Society. Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by "https://www.kb.se/samverkan-och-utveckling/oppen-tillgang-och-bibsamkonsortiet/bibsamkonsortiet.html"Bibsam.
PY - 2022/8/15
Y1 - 2022/8/15
N2 - Axionlike particles (ALPs) are promising dark matter candidates. They are typically described by a classical field, motivated by large phase space occupation numbers. Here we show that such a description is accompanied by a quantum effect: squeezing due to gravitational self-interactions. For a typical QCD axion today, the onset of squeezing is reached on μs scales and grows over millennia. Thus within the usual models based on the classical Schrödinger-Poisson equation, a type of Gross-Pitaevskii equation, any viable ALP is nonclassical. We also show that squeezing may be relevant on the scales of other self-gravitating systems such as galactic haloes, or solitonic cores. Conversely, our results highlight the incompleteness and limitations of the classical single field description of ALPs.
AB - Axionlike particles (ALPs) are promising dark matter candidates. They are typically described by a classical field, motivated by large phase space occupation numbers. Here we show that such a description is accompanied by a quantum effect: squeezing due to gravitational self-interactions. For a typical QCD axion today, the onset of squeezing is reached on μs scales and grows over millennia. Thus within the usual models based on the classical Schrödinger-Poisson equation, a type of Gross-Pitaevskii equation, any viable ALP is nonclassical. We also show that squeezing may be relevant on the scales of other self-gravitating systems such as galactic haloes, or solitonic cores. Conversely, our results highlight the incompleteness and limitations of the classical single field description of ALPs.
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U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevD.106.043517
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevD.106.043517
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85136098867
SN - 2470-0010
VL - 106
JO - Physical Review D
JF - Physical Review D
IS - 4
M1 - 043517
ER -