Radio lines from accreting axion stars

Abstract

Axion-like particles, which we call axions, can compose the missing dark matter and may form substructures such as miniclusters and axion stars. We obtain the mass distributions of axion stars derived from their host miniclusters in our galaxy and find a significant number of axion stars reaching the decay mass, the critical mass set by the axion-photon coupling. Axion stars that have reached the decay mass can accrete surrounding axions either via or directly from their host miniclusters, subsequently converting them into radio photons through parametric resonance. We demonstrate that this accretion provides observable signals by proposing two scenarios: 1) external accretion of background dark matter occurring via miniclusters, and 2) internal accretion of isolated systems occurring directly from the minicluster onto its core. The emitted radio photons are nearly monochromatic with energies around the half of the axion mass. The radio-line signal emanating from such axion stars provides a distinctive opportunity searching for axions, overcoming the widespread radio backgrounds. We estimate the expected radio-line flux density to constrain the axion-photon coupling g_aγγ at each axion mass and find that the resultant line flux density is strong enough to be observed in radio telescopes such as LOFAR, FAST, ALMA, and upcoming SKA. We can constrain the axion-photon coupling down to gaγγ ≃ 10-12–10-11 GeV-1, reaching even 10-13 GeV-1 depending on the accretion models of axion stars, over an axion mass range of ma ≃ 10-7–10-2 eV. From a different perspective, this radio-line signal could be a strong hint of an axion at the corresponding mass and also of axion stars within our galaxy.