arXiv subjects

Samuel J. Witte

Publications and source records attributed to Samuel J. Witte.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Axion Hair and Pulsar Electrodynamics: modelling, discharge dynamics, and particle-in-cell simulations

In a companion paper, we demonstrated that static axion field gradients sourced by dense nuclear matter (\emph{axion hair}) can dominate the near-field electrodynamics of old rotation-powered pulsars, leading to new constraints on light QCD axions and on CP-violating axion-nucleon interactions. This article provides the extended theoretical and numerical framework underlying those results. We begin by providing a detailed description of the sourcing of axion hair from dense nuclear matter, computing self-consistent field profiles for each interaction across the relevant parameter space. We then study the modification to the electrodynamics induced in the polar gap region by these axion gradients; this is done at the analytic level by studying the modification induced by axion field gradients on the effective discharge parameter (computed in the force-free limit of the split monopole magnetic field configuration, and looking at leading deviations from the force-free limit for dipolar field configurations), and numerically by developing dedicated 1D particle-in-cell simulations which capture the leading order dynamical behavior near the star. Our results demonstrate that axion hair serves to either enhance acceleration, or enhance screening, where the relevant effect changes between the northern and southern hemispheres of the star, and between the field lines which support out-flowing and return currents.

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arXiv2026

High-Frequency Gravitational Waves from the Galactic Pulsar Population

The high-frequency gravitational-wave band is often discussed primarily in the context of new physics, but realistic Standard-Model foregrounds remain incompletely characterized. We investigate pulsar polar caps as a physically motivated astrophysical source of high-frequency gravitational waves, generated by repeated discharge cycles in compact near-surface plasma gaps. Our baseline result is population-level: we construct the signal from the Galactic normal-pulsar population rather than from a single especially favorable object. To do so, we calibrate the source dynamics with particle-in-cell simulations performed at real physical scales, with physical pulsar parameters mapped directly onto numerical scales, and then lift the resolved longitudinal discharge to a cap-scale emission model. The gravitational-wave signal is computed in a full Fourier-space framework, retaining finite-source, geometric, and polarization effects explicitly. Within this treatment, the dominant contribution is not the purely electric channel emphasized in some earlier simplified approaches, but a source channel involving the large background magnetic field and discharge-induced transverse fluctuations of magnetic field. Integrating this description over a normal-pulsar population, we find an astrophysical foreground in the MHz-scale high-frequency band that can overlap with and partially obscure the thermal gravitational-wave signal sourced by the plasma of the early Universe. At the same time, the normalization remains sensitive to the modeled assumptions. Although the predicted strain remains far below current experimental sensitivity, pulsar polar caps provide a concrete Standard-Model foreground benchmark in a band often treated as nearly background-free. Alternative source configurations further broaden the plausible signal range around this baseline.

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arXiv2026

Simulating Axion Electrodynamics in Magnetized Plasmas: Energy transfer in the inhomogeneous and strongly varying limit

In this work we study the electromagnetic response induced by axions in a magnetized plasma, focusing specifically on characterizing energy transfer and energy losses from the ambient axion field in highly inhomogeneous and strongly varying backgrounds. Using a suite of both frequency-domain and time-domain simulations, we solve for: the efficiency of photon excitation in a rapidly varying background, the indirect excitation of Alfv\'en modes, occurring when a Langmuir-Ordinary (LO) mode is resonantly excited near a combined cutoff-resonance of the dispersion relations of the LO and Alfv\'en modes, and the excitation of electric fields in small localized plasma under-densities. We identify a particularly interesting regime in which energy can be transferred into sub-luminal plasma modes ($\omega < k$) with an efficiency greater than that of super-luminal modes ($\omega > k$). Our results highlight a variety of less conventional ways in which axions (and other light degrees of freedom that mix with electromagnetism, such as dark photons or gravitons) can interact in extreme astrophysical environments.

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arXiv2025

Constraints on light QCD and CP-violating axions from the death line of rotation-powered pulsars

Dense nuclear matter can modify the effective potential of axions, displacing them from their vacuum minimum, and sourcing large external field gradients (``axion hair"). In the case of neutron stars, axion hair directly modifies the electrodynamic processes operating on the open field-line region, strongly enhancing or suppressing the acceleration experienced by ambient charges. As a result, the point in the neutron star lifetime at which pair-cascades cease -- known as pulsar ``death" -- can be dramatically altered, allowing for much older pulsars to emit observable radio emission. We study the pair discharge process in the presence of axion hair using semi-analytic techniques and particle-in-cell simulations, and use these results alongside pulsar demographics to derive new constraints on light QCD axions with non-negligible axion-photon coupling and CP-violating axion-nucleon interactions. We also illustrate how nearly orthogonal rotators, where emission is observed from both poles (such as in the case of PSR J1906+0746), provides a complementary probe of axion hair.

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arXiv2025

Superradiance Constraints from GW231123

Gravitational wave observations have recently revealed with high significance, and high precision, the existence of $\mathcal{O}(100) \, M_\odot$ rapidly rotating black holes, allowing gravitational wave events to be used for the first time to probe unexplored axion parameter space using the phenomenon known as black hole superradiance. Here, we present new limits on axions using the binary black hole merger event GW231123, whose constituent black holes are among the fastest spinning observed with gravitational waves to date. We demonstrate that the most viable binary formation channels lead to conservative constraints on axion masses $\mu \sim [0.6-5] \times \, 10^{-13}$ eV and decay constants $f_\Phi \gtrsim 10^{14}$ GeV, extending existing superradiance constraints derived using x-ray observations to yet lower axion masses.

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arXiv2025

Searching for Axion Dark Matter Near Relaxing Magnetars

Axion dark matter passing through the magnetospheres of magnetars can undergo hyper-efficient resonant mixing with low-energy photons, leading to the production of narrow spectral lines that could be detectable on Earth. Since this is a resonant process triggered by the spatial variation in the photon dispersion relation, the luminosity and spectral properties of the emission are highly sensitive to the charge and current densities permeating the magnetosphere. To date, a majority of the studies investigating this phenomenon have assumed a perfectly dipolar magnetic field structure with a near-field plasma distribution fixed to the minimal charge-separated force-free configuration. While this {may} be a reasonable treatment for the closed field lines of conventional radio pulsars, the strong magnetic fields around magnetars are believed to host processes that drive strong deviations from this minimal configuration. In this work, we study how realistic magnetar magnetospheres impact the electromagnetic emission produced from axion dark matter. Specifically, we construct charge and current distributions that are consistent with magnetar observations, and use these to recompute the prospective sensitivity of radio and sub-mm telescopes to axion dark matter. We demonstrate that the two leading models yield vastly different predictions for the frequency and amplitude of the spectral line, indicating systematic uncertainties in the plasma structure are significant. Finally, we discuss various observational signatures that can be used to differentiate the local plasma loading mechanism of an individual magnetar, which will be necessary if there is hope of using such objects to search for axions.

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arXiv2024

Stepping Up Superradiance Constraints on Axions

Light feebly-coupled bosonic particles can efficiently extract the rotational energy of rapidly spinning black holes on sub-astrophysical timescales via a phenomenon known as black hole superradiance. In the case of light axions, the feeble self-interactions of these particles can lead to a non-linear coupled evolution of many superradiant quasi-bound states, dramatically altering the rate at which the black hole is spun down. In this work, we extend the study of axion superradiance to higher order states, solving for the first time the coupled evolution of all states with $n \leq 5$ in the fully relativistic limit (with $n$ being the principle quantum number). Using a Bayesian framework, we re-derive constraints on axions using the inferred spins of solar mass black holes, demonstrating that previously adopted limit-setting procedures have underestimated current sensitivity to the axion decay constant $f_a$ by around one order of magnitude, and that the inclusion to higher order states allows one to reasonably capture the evolution of typical high-spin black holes across a much wider range of parameter space, thereby allowing constraints to be extended to more massive axions. We conclude with an extensive discussion on the systematics associated with spin inference from x-ray observations.

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arXiv2024

Pulsar Nulling and Vacuum Radio Emission from Axion Clouds

Non-relativistic axions can be efficiently produced in in the polar caps of pulsars, resulting in the formation of a dense cloud of gravitationally bound axions. Here, we investigate the interplay between such an axion cloud and the electrodynamics in the pulsar magnetosphere, focusing specifically on the dynamics in the polar caps, where the impact of the axion cloud is expected to be most pronounced. For sufficiently light axions $m_a \lesssim 10^{-7}$ eV, we show that the axion cloud can occasionally screen the local electric field responsible for particle acceleration and pair production, inducing a periodic nulling of the pulsar's intrinsic radio emission. At larger axion masses, the small-scale fluctuations in the axion field tend to suppress the back-reaction of the axion on the electrodynamics; however, we point out that the incoherent oscillations of the axion in short-lived regions of vacuum near the neutron star surface can produce a narrow radio line, which provides a complementary source of radio emission to the plasma-resonant emission processes identified in previous work. While this work focuses on the leading order correction to pair production in the magnetosphere, we speculate that there can exist dramatic deviations in the electrodynamics of these systems when the axion back-reaction becomes non-linear.

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arXiv2024

Numerical Analysis of Resonant Axion-Photon Mixing: Part I

Many present-day axion searches attempt to probe the mixing of axions and photons, which occurs in the presence of an external magnetic field. While this process is well-understood in a number of simple and idealized contexts, a strongly varying or highly inhomogeneous background can impact the efficiency and evolution of the mixing in a non-trivial manner. In an effort to develop a generalized framework for analyzing axion-photon mixing in arbitrary systems, we focus in this work on directly solving the axion-modified form of Maxwell's equations across a simulation domain with a spatially varying background. We concentrate specifically on understanding resonantly enhanced axion-photon mixing in a highly magnetized plasma, which is a key ingredient for developing precision predictions of radio signals emanating from the magnetospheres of neutron stars. After illustrating the success and accuracy of our approach for simplified limiting cases, we compare our results with a number of analytic solutions recently derived to describe mixing in these systems. We find that our numerical method demonstrates a high level of agreement with one, but only one, of the published results. Interestingly, our method also recovers the mixing between the axion and magnetosonic-t and Alfvén modes; these modes cannot escape from the regions of dense plasma, but could non-trivially alter the dynamics in certain environments. Future work will focus on extending our calculations to study resonant mixing in strongly variable backgrounds, mixing in generalized media (beyond the strong magnetic field limit), and the mixing of photons with other light bosonic fields, such as dark photons.

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arXiv2024

Adiabatic Axion-Photon Mixing Near Neutron Stars

One of the promising new proposals to search for axions in astrophysical environments is to look for narrow radio lines produced from the resonant conversion of axion dark matter falling through the magnetospheres of neutron stars. For sufficiently strong magnetic fields, axion masses in the $\mathcal{O}(10μ{\rm eV)}$ range, and axion-photon couplings $g_{aγ} \gtrsim 10^{-12} \, {\rm GeV^{-1}}$, the conversion can become hyper-efficient, allowing axion-photon and photon-axion transitions to occur with $\mathcal{O}(1)$ probabilities. Despite the strong mixing between these particles, the observable radio flux emanating from the magnetosphere is expected to be heavily suppressed -- this is a consequence of the fact that photons sourced by infalling axions have a high probability of converting back into axions before escaping the magnetosphere. In this work, we study the evolution of the axion and photon phase space near the surface of highly magnetized neutron stars in the adiabatic regime, quantifying for the first time the properties of the radio flux that arise at high axion-photon couplings. We show that previous attempts to mimic the scaling in this regime have been overly conservative in their treatment, and that the suppression can be largely circumvented for radio observations targeting neutron star populations.

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arXiv2023

Precision CMB constraints on eV-scale bosons coupled to neutrinos

The cosmic microwave background (CMB) has proven to be an invaluable tool for studying the properties and interactions of neutrinos, providing insight not only into the sum of neutrino masses but also the free streaming nature of neutrinos prior to recombination. The CMB is a particularly powerful probe of new eV-scale bosons interacting with neutrinos, as these particles can thermalize with neutrinos via the inverse decay process, $ν\barν \rightarrow X$, and suppress neutrino free streaming near recombination -- even for couplings as small as $λ_ν\sim \mathcal{O}(10^{-13})$. Here, we revisit CMB constraints on such bosons, improving upon a number of approximations previously adopted in the literature and generalizing the constraints to a broader class of models. This includes scenarios in which the boson is either spin-$0$ or spin-$1$, the number of interacting neutrinos is either $N_{\rm int} = 1,2 $ or $3$, and the case in which a primordial abundance of the species is present. We apply these bounds to well-motivated models, such as the singlet majoron model or a light $U(1)_{L_μ-L_τ}$ gauge boson, and find that they represent the leading constraints for masses $m_X\sim 1\, {\rm eV}$. Finally, we revisit the extent to which neutrino-philic bosons can ameliorate the Hubble tension, and find that recent improvements in the understanding of how such bosons damp neutrino free streaming reduces the previously found success of this proposal.

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arXiv2023

Constraining the X-ray heating and reionization using 21-cm power spectra with Marginal Neural Ratio Estimation

Cosmic Dawn (CD) and Epoch of Reionization (EoR) are epochs of the Universe which host invaluable information about the cosmology and astrophysics of X-ray heating and hydrogen reionization. Radio interferometric observations of the 21-cm line at high redshifts have the potential to revolutionize our understanding of the universe during this time. However, modeling the evolution of these epochs is particularly challenging due to the complex interplay of many physical processes. This makes it difficult to perform the conventional statistical analysis using the likelihood-based Markov-Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods, which scales poorly with the dimensionality of the parameter space. In this paper, we show how the Simulation-Based Inference (SBI) through Marginal Neural Ratio Estimation (MNRE) provides a step towards evading these issues. We use 21cmFAST to model the 21-cm power spectrum during CD-EoR with a six-dimensional parameter space. With the expected thermal noise from the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), we are able to accurately recover the posterior distribution for the parameters of our model at a significantly lower computational cost than the conventional likelihood-based methods. We further show how the same training dataset can be utilized to investigate the sensitivity of the model parameters over different redshifts. Our results support that such efficient and scalable inference techniques enable us to significantly extend the modeling complexity beyond what is currently achievable with conventional MCMC methods.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2023

Novel Constraints on Axions Produced in Pulsar Polar-Cap Cascades

Axions can be copiously produced in localized regions of neutron star magnetospheres where the ambient plasma is unable to efficiently screen the induced electric field. As these axions stream away from the neutron star they can resonantly transition into photons, generating a large broadband contribution to the neutron star's intrinsic radio flux. In this work, we develop a comprehensive end-to-end framework to model this process from the initial production of axions to the final detection of radio photons, and derive constraints on the axion-photon coupling, $g_{aγγ}$, using observations of 27 nearby pulsars. We study the modeling uncertainty in the sourced axion spectrum by comparing predictions from 2.5 dimensional particle-in-cell simulations with those derived using a semi-analytic model; these results show remarkable agreement, leading to constraints on the axion-photon coupling that typically differ by a factor of no more than $\sim 2$. The limits presented here are the strongest to date for axion masses $10^{-8} \, {\rm eV} \lesssim m_a \lesssim 10^{-5} \, {\rm eV}$, and crucially do not rely on the assumption that axions are dark matter.

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arXiv2023

Axion Clouds around Neutron Stars

Recent work has shown that axions can be efficiently produced via non-stationary pair plasma discharges in the polar cap region of pulsars. Here, we point out that for axion masses $10^{-9} \, {\rm eV} \lesssim m_a \lesssim 10^{-4} \, \rm eV$, a sizable fraction of the sourced axion population will be gravitationally confined to the neutron star. These axions accumulate over astrophysical timescales, thereby forming a dense `axion cloud' around the star. We argue that the existence of such a cloud, with densities reaching and potentially exceeding $\mathcal{O}(10^{22}) \, {\rm GeV \, cm^{-3}}$, is a generic expectation across a wide range of parameter space. For axion masses $m_a \gtrsim 10^{-7} \, \rm eV$, energy is primarily radiated from the axion cloud via resonant axion-photon mixing, generating a number of distinctive signatures that include: a sharp line in the radio spectrum of each pulsar (located at the axion mass, and with an order percent-level width), and transient events arising from the reconfiguration of charge densities in the magnetosphere. While a deeper understanding of the systematic uncertainties in these systems is required, our current estimates suggest that existing radio telescopes could improve sensitivity to the axion-photon coupling by more than an order of magnitude.

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arXiv2023

Transient Radio Lines from Axion Miniclusters and Axion Stars

Gravitationally bound clumps of dark matter axions in the form of 'miniclusters' or even denser 'axion stars' can generate strong radio signals through axion-photon conversion when encountering highly magnetised neutron star magnetospheres. We systematically study encounters of axion clumps with neutron stars and characterise the axion infall, conversion and the subsequent propagation of the photons. We show that the high density and low escape velocity of the axion clumps lead to strong, narrow, and temporally characteristic transient radio lines with an expected duration varying from seconds to months. Our work comprises the first end-to-end modeling pipeline capable of characterizing the radio signal generated during these transient encounters, quantifying the typical brightness, anisotropy, spectral width, and temporal evolution of the radio flux. The methods developed here may prove essential in developing dedicated radio searches for transient radio lines arising from miniclusters and axion stars.

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arXiv2022

Fast and Credible Likelihood-Free Cosmology with Truncated Marginal Neural Ratio Estimation

Sampling-based inference techniques are central to modern cosmological data analysis; these methods, however, scale poorly with dimensionality and typically require approximate or intractable likelihoods. In this paper we describe how Truncated Marginal Neural Ratio Estimation (TMNRE) (a new approach in so-called simulation-based inference) naturally evades these issues, improving the $(i)$ efficiency, $(ii)$ scalability, and $(iii)$ trustworthiness of the inferred posteriors. Using measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), we show that TMNRE can achieve converged posteriors using orders of magnitude fewer simulator calls than conventional Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods. Remarkably, the required number of samples is effectively independent of the number of nuisance parameters. In addition, a property called \emph{local amortization} allows the performance of rigorous statistical consistency checks that are not accessible to sampling-based methods. TMNRE promises to become a powerful tool for cosmological data analysis, particularly in the context of extended cosmologies, where the timescale required for conventional sampling-based inference methods to converge can greatly exceed that of simple cosmological models such as $Λ$CDM. To perform these computations, we use an implementation of TMNRE via the open-source code \texttt{swyft}.

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arXiv2022

Revisiting constraints on WIMPs around primordial black holes

While Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) with masses $M_{\rm PBH} \gtrsim 10^{-11} \, M_\odot$ cannot comprise the entirety of dark matter, the existence of even a small population of these objects can have profound astrophysical consequences. A sub-dominant population of PBHs will efficiently accrete dark matter particles before matter-radiation equality, giving rise to high-density dark matter spikes. We consider here the scenario in which dark matter is comprised primarily of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) with a small sub-dominant contribution coming from PBHs, and revisit the constraints on the annihilation of WIMPs in these spikes using observations of the isotropic gamma-ray background (IGRB) and the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), for a range of WIMP masses, annihilation channels, cross sections, and PBH mass functions. We find that the constraints derived using the IGRB have been significantly overestimated (in some cases by many orders of magnitude), and that limits obtained using observations of the CMB are typically stronger than, or comparable to, those coming from the IGRB. Importantly, we show that $\sim \mathcal{O}(M_\odot)$ PBHs can still contribute significantly to the dark matter density for sufficiently low WIMP masses and p-wave annihilation cross sections.

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arXiv2022

Axion-Photon Conversion in Neutron Star Magnetospheres: The Role of the Plasma in the Goldreich-Julian Model

The most promising indirect search for the existence of axion dark matter uses radio telescopes to look for narrow spectral lines generated from the resonant conversion of axions in the magnetospheres of neutron stars. Unfortunately, a large list of theoretical uncertainties has prevented this search strategy from being fully accepted as robust. In this work we attempt to address major outstanding questions related to the role and impact of the plasma, including: $(i)$ does refraction and reflection of radio photons in the magnetosphere induce strong inhomogeneities in the flux, $(ii)$ can refraction induce premature axion-photon de-phasing, $(iii)$ to what extent do photon-plasma interactions induce a broadening of the spectral line, $(iv)$ does the flux have a strong time dependence, and $(v)$ can radio photons sourced by axions be absorbed by the plasma. We present an end-to-end analysis pipeline based on ray-tracing that exploits a state-of-the-art auto-differentiation algorithm to propagate photons from the conversion surface to asymptotically large distances. Adopting a charge symmetric Goldreich-Julian model for the magnetosphere, we show that for reasonable parameters one should expect a strong anisotropy of the signal, refraction induced axion-photon de-phasing, significant line-broadening, a variable time-dependence of the flux, and, for large enough magnetic fields, anisotropic absorption. Our simulation code is flexible enough to serve as the basis for follow-up studies with a large range of magnetosphere models.

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