Speaker
Dr
Erik Lentz
(University of Goettingen)
Description
To what extent do axions as the dark matter form structure distinguishable from cold dark matter? This question has generated much debate in axion cosmology for decades, due largely to uncertainty in modeling the axion's highly-degenerate state. The standard approach thus far has been to treat the degenerate Bose fluid of axions as a classical field, limiting its distinguishable dynamics to the de Broglie scale. Such a description also removes the possibility of inter-particle correlations, which are known in condensed matter systems to generate additional dynamics. Here I present a model of axion structure formation that includes the influence of inter-axion correlations on an axion condensate, showing that a highly-correlated Bose fluid contains extra-classical physics. N-body simulations of galactic infall show novel exchange-correlation-induced structures in even the most violent collapses. A number of these unique structures may be visible to current observation and axion-search efforts.
Summary
This talk is based on the papers given by the arXiv IDs below:
arXiv:1808.06378
arXiv:1810.09226
arXiv:1904.06948
Primary author
Dr
Erik Lentz
(University of Goettingen)
Co-authors
Dr
Leslie Rosenberg
(University of Washington)
Dr
Thomas Quinn
(University of Washington)