Physical signatures of fermion-coupled axion dark matter

Abstract In the presence of axion dark matter, fermion spins experience an “axion wind” torque and an “axioelectric” force. We investigate new experimental probes of these effects and find that magnetized analogs of multilayer dielectric haloscopes can explore orders of magnitude of new parameter sp...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of High Energy Physics
Main Authors: Asher Berlin, Alexander J. Millar, Tanner Trickle, Kevin Zhou
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: SpringerOpen 2024-05-01
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP05(2024)314
Description
Summary:Abstract In the presence of axion dark matter, fermion spins experience an “axion wind” torque and an “axioelectric” force. We investigate new experimental probes of these effects and find that magnetized analogs of multilayer dielectric haloscopes can explore orders of magnitude of new parameter space for the axion-electron coupling. We also revisit the calculation of axion absorption into in-medium excitations, showing that axioelectric absorption is screened in spin-polarized targets, and axion wind absorption can be characterized in terms of a magnetic energy loss function. Finally, our detailed theoretical treatment allows us to critically examine recent claims in the literature. We find that axioelectric corrections to electronic energy levels are smaller than previously estimated and that the purported electron electric dipole moment due to a constant axion field is entirely spurious.
ISSN:1029-8479