TY - JOUR
T1 - Analysis of Bose-Einstein condensation times for self-interacting scalar dark matter
AU - Kirkpatrick, Kay
AU - Mirasola, Anthony E.
AU - Prescod-Weinstein, Chanda
N1 - We would like to thank Asimina Arvanitaki, Arka Banerjee, Noah Glennon, Sam McDermott, Nathan Musoke, Ethan Nadler, Tim M. P. Tait, and Xiaolong Du for helpful conversations. C. P. W. would like to thank all workers who made this research possible, especially those at the University of New Hampshire (including Michelle Waltz and Katie Makem-Boucher). A. E. M.’s contributions to this project were supported by DOE Grant No. DE-SC0020220.
PY - 2022/8/15
Y1 - 2022/8/15
N2 - We investigate the condensation time of self-interacting axionlike particles in a gravitational well, extending the prior work [K. Kirkpatrick, A. E. Mirasola, and C. Prescod-Weinstein, Phys. Rev. D 102, 103012 (2020)PRVDAQ2470-001010.1103/PhysRevD.102.103012] which showed that the Wigner formalism is a good analytic approach to describe a condensing scalar field. In the present work, we use this formalism to affirm that φ4 self-interactions will take longer than necessary to support the time scales associated with structure formation, making gravity a necessary part of the process to bring axion dark matter into a solitonic form. Here we show that when the axions' virial velocity is taken into account, the time scale associated with self-interactions will scale as λ2. This is consistent with recent numerical estimates, and it confirms that the Wigner formalism described in prior work [K. Kirkpatrick, A. E. Mirasola, and C. Prescod-Weinstein, Phys. Rev. D 102, 103012 (2020)PRVDAQ2470-001010.1103/PhysRevD.102.103012] is a helpful analytic framework to check computational work for potential numerical artifacts.
AB - We investigate the condensation time of self-interacting axionlike particles in a gravitational well, extending the prior work [K. Kirkpatrick, A. E. Mirasola, and C. Prescod-Weinstein, Phys. Rev. D 102, 103012 (2020)PRVDAQ2470-001010.1103/PhysRevD.102.103012] which showed that the Wigner formalism is a good analytic approach to describe a condensing scalar field. In the present work, we use this formalism to affirm that φ4 self-interactions will take longer than necessary to support the time scales associated with structure formation, making gravity a necessary part of the process to bring axion dark matter into a solitonic form. Here we show that when the axions' virial velocity is taken into account, the time scale associated with self-interactions will scale as λ2. This is consistent with recent numerical estimates, and it confirms that the Wigner formalism described in prior work [K. Kirkpatrick, A. E. Mirasola, and C. Prescod-Weinstein, Phys. Rev. D 102, 103012 (2020)PRVDAQ2470-001010.1103/PhysRevD.102.103012] is a helpful analytic framework to check computational work for potential numerical artifacts.
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U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevD.106.043512
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevD.106.043512
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85136131855
SN - 2470-0010
VL - 106
JO - Physical Review D
JF - Physical Review D
IS - 4
M1 - 043512
ER -