Axions differ from the other cold dark matter candidates in that they form a degenerate Bose gas. It is shown that their huge quantum degeneracy and large correlation length cause cold dark matter axions to thermalize through gravitational self-interactions when the photon temperature reaches approximately 500 eV. When they thermalize, the axions form a Bose-Einstein condensate. Their thermalization occurs in a regime, herein called the `condensed regime', where the Boltzmann equation is not valid because the energy dispersion of the particles is smaller than their interaction rate. We derive analytical expressions for the thermalization rate of particles in the condensed regime, and check the validity of these expressions by numerical simulation of a toy model. We revisit axion cosmology in light of axion Bose-Einstein condensation. It is shown that axions are indistinguishable from ordinary cold dark matter on all scales of observational interest, except when they thermalize or rethermalize. The rethermalization of axions that are about to fall in a galactic potential well causes them to acquire net overall rotation as they go to the lowest energy state consistent with the total angular momentum they acquired by tidal torquing. This phenomenon explains the occurrence of caustic rings of dark matter in galactic halos. We find that photons may reach thermal contact with axions and investigate the implications of this possibility for the measurements of cosmological parameters.Comment: 38 pages, 1 figur

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We observe that photon cooling after big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) but before recombination can remove the conflict between the observed and theoretically predicted value of the primordial abundance of 7 Li. Such cooling is ordinarily difficult to achieve. However, the recent realization that dark matter axions form a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) provides a possible mechanism, because the much colder axions may reach thermal contact with the photons. This proposal predicts a high effective number of neutrinos as measured by the cosmic microwave anisotropy spectrum.PACS numbers: 95.35.+d

Warm Dense Matter (WDM) physics has been a growing field as part of high energy density physics, driven by the fundamental urge to understand the convergence between plasma and condensed matter physics, and the practical need to understand dynamic behavior of material under extreme conditions. A platform for creating and probing WDM by isochoric heating of free-standing nano-foils has been developed recently to study the non-equilibrium processes. Results of optical measurements reveal the existence of a quasi-steady state in the time history, during which the interband component of the dielectric function shows both enhancement and red shift. First principle calculations of the dielectric function suggest that the enhanced red-shift of interband transition peak might be explained by a positive charge state of gold foil due to ejection of electrons by a high intensity laser pulse. The impact of electronic sheath formation at the surface on the optical property was examined by the Thomas-Fermi theory with local equilibrium approximation.

2016-10-17T18:53:41