Related papers: How a cold axion background influences photons
The main motivation for our work has been a puzzling observation concerning quasars. No one expected the existence of correlations in the polarisation of visible light coming from objects separated by gigaparsecs, until they were first…
We show how the properties of the QCD axion change in systems at finite baryonic density, such as neutron stars. At nuclear saturation densities, where corrections can be reliably computed, we find a mild reduction of the axion mass and up…
Oscillating scalar field condensates induce small amplitude oscillations of the Hubble parameter which can induce a decay of the condensate due to a parametric resonance instability [1]. We show that this instability can lead to the decay…
This paper studies the impact of vacuum polarization on light propagation in the background of a distorted, deformed compact object. Focusing on a spacetime containing two quadrupole parameters associated with the central object and…
Many well-motivated extensions of the Standard Model predict the existence of new light species that may have been produced in the early universe. Prominent examples include axions, sterile neutrinos, gravitinos, dark photons, and more. The…
Photons are excellent information carriers but normally pass through each other without consequence. Engineered interactions between photons would enable applications from quantum information processing to simulation of condensed matter…
Vacuum fluctuations of quantum fields are altered in presence of a strong gravitational background, with important physical consequences. We argue that a non-trivial spacetime geometry can act as an optically active medium for quantum…
A new process associated with the nonlinear optical properties of the electromagnetic vacuum, as predicted by quantum electrodynamics, is described. This can be called photon acceleration in vacuum, and corresponds to the frequency shift…
Axion dark matter can resonantly convert to photons in the magnetosphere of neutron stars, possibly giving rise to radio signals observable on Earth. This method for the indirect detection of axion dark matter has recently received…
The cosmological scenario where the Peccei-Quinn symmetry is broken after inflation is investigated. In this scenario, topological defects such as strings and domain walls produce a large number of axions, which contribute to the cold dark…
Axion-Like Particles (ALPs) are predicted by many extensions of the Standard Model and give rise to characteristic dimming and polarization effects in a light beam travelling in a magnetic field. In this Letter, we demonstrate that…
Axion or axionlike particles are one of the leading candidates for dark matter. Because of its tiny coupling with photons, axion dark matter in the background can induce distinct phase velocities for light with different parity, an effect…
Equations to investigate fluctuations in cosmic X-ray background radiation due to point-like sources at high-redshift are formulated in a systematic way. The angular power spectrum of X-ray background fluctuations is investigated from…
The nonlinear propagation of intense incoherent photons in a photon gas is considered. The photon-photon interactions are governed by a pair of equations comprising a wave-kinetic equation for the incoherent photons in the presence of the…
Thermally emitting neutron stars represent a promising environment for probing the properties of axion-like particles. Due to the strong magnetic fields of these sources, surface photons may partially convert into such particles in the…
In presence of a magnetic field, photons can mix with any particle having a two-photon vertex. In theories with large compact extra-dimensions, there exists a hierachy of massive Kaluza-Klein gravitons that couple to any photon entering a…
We investigate the production of photons from coherently oscillating, spatially localized clumps of axionic fields (oscillons and axion stars) in the presence of external electromagnetic fields. We delineate different qualitative behaviour…
A zero initial velocity of the axion field is assumed in the conventional misalignment mechanism. We propose an alternative scenario where the initial velocity is nonzero, which may arise from an explicit breaking of the PQ symmetry in the…
The axion particle is the outcome of the proposed Peccei-Quinn mechanism for solving the strong CP problem. Axion is also a popular dark matter candidate. Thus there is an increased interest in establishing its existence. Axions couple to…
Axion as a coherently oscillating scalar field is known to behave as a cold dark matter in all cosmologically relevant scales. For conventional axion mass with 10^{-5} eV, the axion reveals a characteristic damping behavior in the evolution…