Solutions to axion electromagnetodynamics and new search strategies of sub-$\mu$eV axion

TL;DR

This paper develops a new theoretical framework for axion electromagnetodynamics, revealing additional axion-photon couplings and proposing innovative experimental strategies to detect sub-microelectronvolt axions.

Contribution

It introduces a generalized low-energy axion-photon effective theory with new couplings and modifies Maxwell's equations, suggesting novel search methods for axions in haloscope experiments.

Findings

New axion-photon couplings ($g_{aAB}$, $g_{aBB}$) can be probed with external fields.

Induced electric fields dominate over magnetic fields for large-wavelength axions.

Proposes alternative experimental strategies for sub-$rac12$eV axion detection.

Abstract

The Witten effect implies the electromagnetic interactions between axions and magnetic monopoles. Based on the quantum electromagnetodynamics, a generic low-energy axion-photon effective field theory was built by introducing two four-potentials ($A^\mu$ and $B^\mu$) to describe a photon. More anomalous axion-photon interactions and couplings ($g_{aAA}$, $g_{aBB}$ and $g_{aAB}$) arise in contrary to the ordinary axion coupling $g_{a\gamma\gamma}aF^{\mu\nu}\tilde{F}_{\mu\nu}$. As a consequence, the conventional axion Maxwell equations are further modified. We properly solve the new axion-modified Maxwell equations and obtain the axion-induced electromagnetic fields given a static electric or magnetic field. It turns out that the dominant couplings $g_{aAB}$ and $g_{aBB}$ can be probed in the presence of external magnetic field and electric field, respectively. The induced oscillating magnetic fields are always suppressed compared with the electric fields for the axions with large Compton wavelengths. This is contrary to the situation in conventional experiments searching for the oscillating magnetic fields induced by sub-$\mu$eV axions. Thus, we propose new strategies to measure the new couplings for sub-$\mu$eV axion in haloscope experiments.