Synthetic and cosmological axion hybridization: entangled photons, (HBT) and quantum beats

Abstract

In this article it is argued that synthetic axions, emergent collective excitations in topological insulators or Weyl semimetals hybridize with the cosmological axion, a compelling dark matter candidate via a common two photon decay channel since they both couple to electromagnetic fields via a Chern-Simons term. We point out an analogy to a V-type three level system with the two upper levels identified with the synthetic and cosmological axions decaying into a two-photon state. The Weisskopf-Wigner theory of spontaneous decay in multi level atoms is complemented and extended to describe the dynamics of hybridization. The final two-photon state features both kinematic and polarization entanglement and displays quantum beats as a consequence of the interference between the decay paths. An initial population of either axion induces a population of the other via hybridization. Consequently, a dark matter axion condensate induces a condensate of the synthetic axion, albeit with small amplitude. We obtain a momentum and polarization resolved Hanbury- Brown Twiss (HBT) second order coherence describing coincident correlated two-photon detection. It exhibits quantum beats with a frequency given by the difference between the energies of the synthetic and cosmological axion and \emph{perhaps may be harnessed} to detect either type of axion excitations. The case of synthetic axions individually is obtained in the limit of vanishing coupling of the cosmological axion and features similar two-photon correlations. Hence second order (HBT) two-photon coherence \emph{may} provide an alternative detection mechanism for emergent condensed matter axionic collective excitations. Similarities and differences with parametrically down converted photons are discussed.