Telescope Array Bursts, Radio Pulses and Axion Quark Nuggets

TL;DR

This paper proposes that certain short bursts observed by the Telescope Array, correlated with lightning, may be caused by dark matter annihilation events involving axion quark nuggets, detectable via synchronized radio signals.

Contribution

It introduces a novel test for dark matter involving radio signals synchronized with TA bursts, based on the AQN model.

Findings

TA bursts are correlated with lightning.

Radio signals in 0.5-200 MHz band can distinguish AQN events.

Lightning-induced radio emissions can be discriminated.

Abstract

Telescope Array (TA) experiment has recorded \cite{Abbasi:2017rvx,Okuda_2019} several short time bursts of air shower like events. These bursts are very distinct from conventional single showers, and are found to be strongly correlated with lightnings. In our previous work \cite{Zhitnitsky:2020shd} we proposed that these bursts represent the direct manifestation of the dark matter (DM) annihilation events within the so-called axion quark nugget (AQN) model. In the present work we suggest to test this proposal to search for the radio signals in frequency band $\nu\in (0.5-200)$ MHz which must be synchronized with the TA bursts. We argued that the conventional lightning-induced radio emission can be easily discriminated from the AQN-induced radio pulses discussed in this work.