@article{10902/31278,
year = {2021},
url = {https://hdl.handle.net/10902/31278},
abstract = {The QCD axion is expected to form dense structures known as axion miniclusters if the Peccei-Quinn
symmetry is broken after inflation. Miniclusters that have survived until today will interact with neutron
stars (NSs) in the Milky Way to produce transient radio signals from axion-photon conversion in the NS
magnetosphere. We quantify the properties of these encounters and find that they occur frequently
[Oð1?100Þday?1], last between a day and a few months, are spatially clustered toward the Galactic Center,
and can reach observable fluxes. These radio transients are within reach of current generation telescopes
and therefore offer a promising pathway to discovering QCD axion dark matter.},
organization = {We thank Sebastian Baum, Gianfranco Bertone, Malte Buschmann, Matthew Lawson, David J. E. Marsh, M. C. David Marsh, Alexander Millar, Lina Necib, Ciaran O’Hare, Javier Redondo, and Ben Safdi for providing insightful
comments. T. E. acknowledges support by the Vetenskapsrådet (Swedish Research Council) through Contract No. 638-2013-8993 and the Oskar Klein Centre for Cosmoparticle Physics. T. E. was also supported in part by the research environment grant “Detecting Axion Dark Matter in the Sky and in the Lab (AxionDM)” funded by the
Swedish Research Council (VR) under Dnr 2019-02337. T. E. and C. W. are supported by the NWO through the VIDI research program “Probing the Genesis of Dark Matter” (680-47-5). L. V. is supported through the research program “The Hidden Universe of Weakly Interacting Particles” with Project No. 680.92.18.03 (NWOVrije Programma), which is partly financed by the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (Dutch Research Council), and acknowledges support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 754496 (H2020-MSCA-COFUND-2016 FELLINI). B. J. K. thanks the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI, MICIU) for the support to the Unidad de Excelencia María de Maeztu Instituto de Física de Cantabria, ref. MDM-2017-0765. Some of this work was carried out on the Dutch national e-infrastructure with the support of SURF Cooperative.},
publisher = {American Physical Society},
publisher = {Physical Review Letters, 2021, 127(13), 131103},
title = {Transient radio signatures from neutron star encounters with QCD axion miniclusters},
author = {Edwards, Thomas D. P. and Kavanagh, Bradley James and Visinelli, Luca and Weniger, Christoph},
}