Squeezing and Decoherence of Axion Dark Matter
Abstract
Bosonic particles beyond the Standard Model, such as axions, are among the leading candidates for dark matter. If such particles have a small mass, they are usually described as a purely classical field. However, it was recently shown that this description is incomplete: their inherent gravitational self-interactions can squeeze the field, producing a quantum feature beyond the classical description. Here we analyze squeezing of light dark matter in the presence of decoherence. We show that squeezing is continuously generated, and rapidly enough to survive dissipation, and may also remain present under thermal fluctuations and dephasing. Our results demonstrate that dark matter might possess persistent quantum features and motivate further investigation of their implications for dark matter detection.
Related
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- Wide-Mass-Scanning-Range Setup and Phase-Resolved Protocol for Axion Dark Matter Detection
BibTeX
@misc{fragkos2026squeezing,
title = {{Squeezing and Decoherence of Axion Dark Matter}},
author = {Vasileios Fragkos and Igor Pikovski},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.25466},
eprint = {2610.25466},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.25466},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Squeezing and Decoherence of Axion Dark Matter
AU - Vasileios Fragkos
AU - Igor Pikovski
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/18
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.25466
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.25466
AB - Bosonic particles beyond the Standard Model, such as axions, are among the leading candidates for dark matter. If such particles have a small mass, they are usually described as a purely classical field. However, it was recently shown that this description is incomplete: their inherent gravitational self-interactions can squeeze the field, producing a quantum feature beyond the classical description. Here we analyze squeezing of light dark matter in the presence of decoherence. We show that squeezing is continuously generated, and rapidly enough to survive dissipation, and may also remain present under thermal fluctuations and dephasing. Our results demonstrate that dark matter might possess persistent quantum features and motivate further investigation of their implications for dark matter detection.
ER -