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The cosmological axion dark matter decay

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Abstract

It has been shown that the axions produced in early universe can account for the cosmological dark matter. Theoretically, axions can decay and their decay rate can be greatly enhanced by stimulated emission of photons. In this article, we present a theoretical framework to describe the decay of the cosmological axion dark matter. We show that, for a certain parameter space of axion mass \(m_a\) and the axion–photon coupling constant \(g_{a \gamma \gamma }\), the axion decay would be significantly triggered so that no axion dark matter remains. For the popular benchmark models of the cosmological axion dark matter \(m_a \sim 10^{-5}\) eV, current observational constraints of the axion–photon coupling constant can ensure that axions are stable enough to be the cosmological dark matter.

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Data Availability Statement

The data underlying this article will be shared on reasonable request to the corresponding author. This manuscript has associated data in a data repository. [Authors’ comment: There is no extra data associated with this article.]

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Acknowledgements

We thank the anonymous referee for useful comments. The work described in this paper was partially supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (Project No. EdUHK 18300922).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Science and Environmental Studies, The Education University of Hong Kong, Tai Po, New Territories, Hong Kong, China

    Man Ho Chan

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  1. Man Ho Chan
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Correspondence to Man Ho Chan.

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Chan, M.H. The cosmological axion dark matter decay. Eur. Phys. J. Plus 138, 286 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-023-03877-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-023-03877-7

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