Signals of Axion Like Dark Matter in Time Dependent Polarization of Light

TL;DR

This paper proposes a method to detect axion-like particle dark matter by analyzing time-dependent polarization data of astrophysical light sources, focusing on Fourier analysis to identify oscillating signals.

Contribution

It introduces a novel Fourier space analysis technique for polarization data to search for ALP dark matter signals in unexplored parameter regions.

Findings

Fourier analysis of polarization can detect ALP signals for masses around 10^{-22} to 10^{-19} eV.

The method can probe parameter regions not covered by existing searches.

Astrophysical sources like supernova remnants are promising for ALP detection.

Abstract

We consider the search for axion-like particles (ALPs) by using time series data of the polarization angle of the light. If the condensation of an ALP plays the role of dark matter, the polarization plane of the light oscillates as a function of time and we may be able to detect the signal of the ALP by continuously observing the polarization. In particular, we discuss that the analysis of the Fourier-transformed data of the time-dependent polarization angle is powerful to find the signal of the ALP dark matter. We pay particular attention to the light coming from astrophysical sources such as protoplanetary disks, supernova remnants, the foreground emission of the cosmic microwave background, and so on. We show that, for the ALP mass of $\sim 10^{-22}$--$10^{-19}\ {\rm eV}$, ALP searches in the Fourier space may reach the parameter region which is unexplored by other searches yet.