Detection of Bosenovae with Quantum Sensors on Earth and in Space

Abstract

In a broad class of theories, the accumulation of ultralight dark matter (ULDM) with particles of mass $10^{-22}~\textrm{eV} < m_{\phi} < 1~\textrm{eV}$ leads the to formation of long-lived bound states known as boson stars. When the ULDM exhibits self-interactions, prodigious bursts of energy carried by relativistic bosons are released from collapsing boson stars in bosenova explosions. We extensively explore the potential reach of terrestrial and space-based experiments for detecting transient signatures of emitted relativistic bursts of scalar particles, including ULDM coupled to photons, electrons, and gluons, capturing a wide range of motivated theories. For the scenario of relaxion ULDM, we demonstrate that upcoming experiments and technology such as nuclear clocks as well as space-based interferometers will be able to sensitively probe orders of magnitude in the ULDM coupling-mass parameter space, challenging to study otherwise, by detecting signatures of transient bosenova events. Our analysis can be readily extended to different scenarios of relativistic scalar particle emission.