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In a broad class of theories, the accumulation of ultralight dark matter (ULDM) with particles of mass leads to the formation of long-lived bound states known as boson stars. When the ULDM exhibits self-interactions, prodigious bursts of energy carried by relativistic bosons are released from collapsing boson stars in bosenova explosions. We extensively explore the potential reach of terrestrial and space-based experiments for detecting transient signatures of emitted relativistic bursts of scalar particles, including ULDM coupled to photons, electrons, and gluons, capturing a wide range of motivated theories. For the scenario of relaxion ULDM, we demonstrate that upcoming experiments and technology such as nuclear clocks as well as space-based interferometers will be able to sensitively probe orders of magnitude in the ULDM coupling-mass parameter space, challenging to study otherwise, by detecting signatures of transient bosenova events. Detection of a bosenova event may also give information about microphysics properties of that would otherwise be difficult with typical direct detection methods. Our analysis can be readily extended to different scenarios of relativistic scalar particle emission. Published by the American Physical Society2024
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Bosenovae with quadratically-coupled scalars in quantum sensing experiments
A<sc>bstract</sc> Ultralight dark matter (ULDM) particles of massmϕ≲ 1 eV can form boson stars in DM halos. Collapse of boson stars leads to explosive bosenova emission of copious relativistic ULDM particles. In this work, we analyze the sensitivity of terrestrial and space-based experiments to detect such relativistic scalar ULDM particles interacting through quadratic couplings with Standard Model constituents, including electrons, photons, and gluons. We highlight key differences with searches for linear ULDM couplings. Screening of ULDM with quadratic couplings near the surface of the Earth can significantly impact observations in terrestrial experiments, motivating future space-based experiments. We demonstrate excellent ULDM discovery prospects, especially for quantum sensors, which can probe quadratic couplings orders below existing constraints by detecting bosenova events in the ULDM mass range 10−23eV ≲mϕ≲ 10−5eV. We also report updated constraints on quadratic couplings of ULDM in case it comprises cold DM.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2309254
- PAR ID:
- 10612468
- Publisher / Repository:
- Springer Nature
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of High Energy Physics
- Volume:
- 2024
- Issue:
- 8
- ISSN:
- 1029-8479
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP08(2024)222
