Physics beyond the Standard Model with the DSA-2000

TL;DR

The paper explores how the upcoming DSA-2000 radio telescope can detect or constrain various physics beyond the Standard Model, including axions, dark photons, dark matter subhalos, and neutrino masses, through multiple observational strategies.

Contribution

It provides the first analytical treatment of radio emission from axion clouds and forecasts DSA-2000's sensitivity to multiple beyond Standard Model physics scenarios.

Findings

Potential to detect QCD axions within five years

Order of magnitude improvement in dark matter substructure constraints

Threefold enhancement in neutrino mass constraints from radio observations

Abstract

The upcoming Deep Synoptic Array 2000 (DSA-2000) will map the radio sky at $0.7-2$ GHz ($2.9 - 8.3 \, \mu$eV) with unprecedented sensitivity. This will enable searches for dark matter and other physics beyond the Standard Model, of which we study four cases: axions, dark photons, dark matter subhalos and neutrino masses. We forecast DSA-2000's potential to detect axions through two mechanisms in neutron star magnetospheres: photon conversion of axion dark matter and radio emission from axion clouds, developing the first analytical treatment of the latter. We also forecast DSA-2000's sensitivity to discover kinetically mixed dark photons from black hole superradiance, constrain dark matter substructure and fifth forces through pulsar timing, and improve cosmological neutrino mass inference through fast radio burst dispersion measurements. Our analysis indicates that in its planned five year run the DSA-2000 could reach sensitivity to QCD axion parameters, improve current limits on compact dark matter by an order of magnitude, and enhance cosmological weak lensing neutrino mass constraints by a factor of three.