May 16 – 19, 2023
Texas A&M University
US/Central timezone

Recurrent Axinovae and their Cosmological Constraints

May 18, 2023, 9:30 AM
25m
Hawking Auditorium (Texas A&M University)

Hawking Auditorium

Texas A&M University

Speaker

Patrick James Fox

Description

Axion-like dark matter whose symmetry breaking occurs after the end of inflation predicts enhanced primordial density fluctuations at small scales. This leads to dense axion minihalos (or miniclusters) forming early in the history of the Universe. Condensation of axions in the minihalos leads to the formation and subsequent growth of axion stars at the cores of these halos. If, like the QCD axion, the axion-like particle has attractive self-interactions there is a maximal mass for these stars, above which the star rapidly shrinks and converts an O(1) fraction of its mass into unbound relativistic axions. This process would leave a similar (although in principle distinct) signature in cosmological observables as a decaying dark matter fraction, and thus is strongly constrained. I will discuss such constraints.

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