Vector bosons heavier than 10 −22 eV can be viable dark matter candidates with distinctive experimental signatures. Ultralight dark matter generally requires a non-thermal origin to achieve the observed density, while still behaving like a pressure-less fluid at late times. We show that such a production mechanism naturally occurs for vectors whose mass originates from a dark Higgs. If the dark Higgs has a large field value after inflation, the energy in the Higgs field can be efficiently transferred to vectors through parametric resonance. Computing the resulting abundance and spectra requires careful treatment of the transverse and longitudinal components, whose dynamics are governed by distinct equations of motion. We study these in detail and find that the mass of the vector may be as low as 10 −18 eV, while making up the dominant dark matter abundance. This opens up a wide mass range of vector dark matter as cosmologically viable, further motivating their experimental search.
Dark matter that is capable of sufficiently heating a local region in a white dwarf will trigger runaway fusion and ignite a type Ia supernova. This was originally proposed by Graham et al. and used to constrain primordial black holes which transit and heat a white dwarf via dynamical friction. In this paper, we consider dark matter (DM) candidates that heat through the production of highenergy standard model (SM) particles, and show that such particles will efficiently thermalize the white dwarf medium and ignite supernovae. Based on the existence of long-lived white dwarfs and the observed supernovae rate, we derive new constraints on ultra-heavy DM with masses greater than 10 16 GeV which produce SM particles through DM-DM annihilations, DM decays, and DM-SM scattering interactions in the stellar medium. As a concrete example, we place bounds on supersymmetric Q-ball DM in parameter space complementary to terrestrial bounds. We put further constraints on DM that is captured by white dwarfs, considering the formation and self-gravitational collapse of a DM core which heats the star via decays and annihilations within the core. It is also intriguing that the DM-induced ignition discussed in this work provide an alternative mechanism of triggering supernovae from sub-Chandrasekhar, non-binary progenitors.
Dark matter (DM) which sufficiently heats a local region in a white dwarf will trigger runaway fusion, igniting a type Ia supernova (SN). In a companion paper, this instability was used to constrain DM heavier than 10 16 GeV which ignites SN through the violent interaction of one or two individual DM particles with the stellar medium. Here we study the ignition of supernovae by the formation and self-gravitational collapse of a DM core containing many DM particles. For non-annihilating DM, such a core collapse may lead to a mini black hole that can ignite SN through the emission of Hawking radiation, or possibly as a by-product of accretion. For annihilating DM, core collapse leads to an increasing annihilation rate and can ignite SN through a large number of rapid annihilations. These processes extend the previously derived constraints on DM to masses as low as 10 5 GeV.
We propose a novel design of a laboratory search for axions based on photon regeneration with superconducting RF cavities. Our particular setup uses a toroid as a region of confined static magnetic field, while production and detection cavities are positioned in regions of vanishing external field. This permits cavity operation at quality factors of Q ∼ 10 10 − 10 12 . The limitations due to fundamental issues such as signal screening and back-reaction are discussed, and the optimal sensitivity is calculated. This experimental design can potentially probe axion-photon couplings beyond astrophysical limits, comparable and complementary to next generation optical experiments.
The recently completed I-band SBF Survey of Galaxy Distances contains about 300 galaxy distances within cz ≲ 4000 km/s. These data allow for good constraints on the local mass density and velocity fields. The mass density parameter βI ≡ Ω0.6/bI, where bI is the biasing factor of the IRAS redshift survey galaxies, is found to be βI ≍ 0.45.
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