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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Nuclear decay anomalies as a signature of axion dark matter

Xin Zhang1,2, Nick Houston3,*, and Tianjun Li4,5

  • 1National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 20A, Datun Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100101, China
  • 2School of Astronomy and Space Science, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
  • 3Institute of Theoretical Physics, Faculty of Science, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100124, China
  • 4CAS Key Laboratory of Theoretical Physics, Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
  • 5School of Physical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 19A Yuquan Road, Beijing 100049, China

  • *Corresponding author: nhouston@bjut.edu.cn
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Phys. Rev. D 108, L071101 – Published 27 October, 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.108.L071101

Abstract

A number of nuclear decay anomalies have been reported in the literature, which purport to show periodic variations in the decay rates of certain radioisotopes. If these reports reflect reality, they would necessitate a seismic shift in our understanding of fundamental physics. We provide the first mechanism to explain these findings, via the misalignment mechanism of QCD axion dark matter, wherein oscillations of the effective θ angle induce periodic variation in nuclear binding energies and hence decay rates. As we expect this effect to be most pronounced in low-Q systems, we analyze 12 years of tritium decay data (Q≃18.6  keV) taken at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre. Finding no statistically significant excess, we exclude axion decay constants below 9.4×1012–1.8×1010  GeV (95% confidence level) for masses in the 1.7×10−23–8.7×10−21  eV range.

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Phys. Rev. D 108, L071101– Published 27 October, 2023
  • Received 24 March 2023
  • Accepted 11 September 2023
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

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