Abstract:We develop the suggestion that dark matter could be a Bose-Einstein condensate. We determine the mass-radius relation of a Newtonian self-gravitating Bose-Einstein condensate with short-range interactions described by the Gross-Pitaevskii-Poisson system. We numerically solve the equation of hydrostatic equilibrium describing the balance between the gravitational attraction and the pressure due to quantum effects (Heisenberg's uncertainty principle) and short-range interactions (scattering). We connect the noni… Show more
“…There are stable Bose star configurations of axions, which are supported by pressure [49][50][51][52], and it has been suggested that these could be produced by further contraction of miniclusters [10,11]. If they do exist, axion stars lead to distinctive observational signatures for example through gravitational lensing [53], or even gravitational wave emission in collisions [54].…”
Section: Axion Starsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…A repulsive quartic would improve star stability, but could make the dynamics of star formation even harder to realise. The stability bound on an axion Bose star is well known [49,50] 1) and above this the star is expected to either fragment into smaller objects or collapse to a black hole. If the miniclusters are produced by PQ symmetry breaking the possible star masses are very strongly constrained.…”
If dark matter is an axion-like-particle a significant fraction of the present day relic abundance could be concentrated in compact gravitationally bound miniclusters. We study the minicluster masses compatible with the dark matter relic density constraint. If they form from fluctuations produced by PQ symmetry breaking, minicluster masses up to hundreds of solar masses are possible, although over most of the parameter space they are much lighter. The size of these objects is typically within a few orders of magnitude of an astronomical unit. We also show that miniclusters can form if an axion gets mass from a hidden sector with a first order phase transition that takes a relatively long time to complete. Therefore they can appear in models where PQ symmetry is broken before inflation, compatible with large axion decay constants and string theory UV completions.
“…There are stable Bose star configurations of axions, which are supported by pressure [49][50][51][52], and it has been suggested that these could be produced by further contraction of miniclusters [10,11]. If they do exist, axion stars lead to distinctive observational signatures for example through gravitational lensing [53], or even gravitational wave emission in collisions [54].…”
Section: Axion Starsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…A repulsive quartic would improve star stability, but could make the dynamics of star formation even harder to realise. The stability bound on an axion Bose star is well known [49,50] 1) and above this the star is expected to either fragment into smaller objects or collapse to a black hole. If the miniclusters are produced by PQ symmetry breaking the possible star masses are very strongly constrained.…”
If dark matter is an axion-like-particle a significant fraction of the present day relic abundance could be concentrated in compact gravitationally bound miniclusters. We study the minicluster masses compatible with the dark matter relic density constraint. If they form from fluctuations produced by PQ symmetry breaking, minicluster masses up to hundreds of solar masses are possible, although over most of the parameter space they are much lighter. The size of these objects is typically within a few orders of magnitude of an astronomical unit. We also show that miniclusters can form if an axion gets mass from a hidden sector with a first order phase transition that takes a relatively long time to complete. Therefore they can appear in models where PQ symmetry is broken before inflation, compatible with large axion decay constants and string theory UV completions.
“…Concerning the dark matter problem, non-thermal candidates like the axion [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] or other massive scalar [22][23][24][25] or pseudoscalar fields [26][27][28][29][30][31][32] also fall in this class. These models can be interpreted as Bose-Einstein condensates, where the scalar particles occupy the lowest quantum state of the potential [33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48]. Finally, the possibility of ultra-light scalar fields as dark matter candidates has been explored in different works [49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58] by tuning appropriately the potential and initial conditions [54]…”
The fact that fast oscillating homogeneous scalar fields behave as perfect fluids in average and their intrinsic isotropy have made these models very fruitful in cosmology. In this work we will analyse the perturbations dynamics in these theories assuming general power law potentials V (φ) = λ|φ| n /n. At leading order in the wavenumber expansion, a simple expression for the effective sound speed of perturbations is obtained c 2 eff = ω = (n − 2)/(n + 2) with ω the effective equation of state. We also obtain the first order correction in k 2 /ω 2 eff , when the wavenumber k of the perturbations is much smaller than the background oscillation frequency, ω eff . For the standard massive case we have also analysed general anharmonic contributions to the effective sound speed. These results are reached through a perturbed version of the generalized virial theorem and also studying the exact system both in the super-Hubble limit, deriving the natural ansatz for δφ; and for sub-Hubble modes, exploiting Floquet's theorem.
“…The galactic masses in the framework of the condensate model were discussed in [32,33], and the effects of the finite temperature of the condensate on the density profiles were studied in [34]. The equilibrium properties of Newtonian self-gravitating Bose-Einstein condensates with short-range interactions were investigated in detail in [35,36]. The study of the cosmological implications of the Bose-Einstein condensation has also become an active field of research [37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46].…”
The possibility that dark matter, whose existence is inferred from the study of the galactic rotation curves, and from the mass deficit in galaxy clusters, can be in a form of a Bose-Einstein Condensate, has been extensively investigated lately. In the present work, we consider a detailed analysis of the astrophysical properties of the Bose-Einstein Condensate dark matter halos that could provide clear observational signatures that help discriminate between different dark matter models. In the BoseEinstein condensation model dark matter can be described as a non-relativistic, gravitationally confined Newtonian gas, whose density and pressure are related by a polytropic equation of state with index n = 1. The mass and gravitational properties of the condensate halos are obtained in a systematic form, including the mean logarithmic slopes of the density and of the tangential velocity. The lensing properties of the condensate dark matter are investigated in detail. In particular, a general analytical formula for the surface density, an important quantity that defines the lensing properties of a dark matter halos, is obtained in the form of series expansions. This enables arbitraryprecision calculations of the surface mass density, deflection angle, deflection potential, and of the magnification factor, thus giving the possibility of the comparison of the predicted lensing properties of the condensate dark matter halos with observations. The stability properties of the condensate halos are also investigated by using the scalar and the tensor virial theorems, respectively, and the virial perturbation equation for condensate dark matter halos is derived. As an application of the scalar virial theorem we consider the problem of the stability of a slowly rotating and slightly disturbed galactic dark matter halo. For such a halo the oscillations frequencies and the stability conditions are obtained in the linear approximation.
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