Searching for Earth/Solar Axion Halos

Understand

We discuss the sensitivity of the present and near-future axion dark matter experiments to a halo of axions or axion-like particles gravitationally bound to the Earth or the Sun.

• The existence of such halos, assuming they are formed, renders a significant gain in the sensitivity of axion searches while satisfying all the present experimental bounds.
• The structure and coherence properties of these halos also imply novel signals, which can depend on the latitude or orientation of the detector.
• We demonstrate this by analysing the sensitivity of several distinct types of axion dark matter experiments.