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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Prominent enhancement of axion thermalization rate from axion-kaon interactions

Jin-Bao Wang1,2,*, Zhi-Hui Guo2,†, and Hai-Qing Zhou1,‡

  • *Contact author: 230228550@seu.edu.cn
  • †Contact author: zhguo@hebtu.edu.cn
  • ‡Contact author: zhouhq@seu.edu.cn
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Phys. Rev. D 112, L031701 – Published 6 August, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/xsvj-g811

Abstract

The axion thermalization rate is a crucial input to determine the hot dark matter bound of axions, resulting from the scattering processes in the thermal bath of early Universe. We demonstrate that the commonly employed axion thermalization rate by including the aπ↔ππ channel alone is significantly underestimated for the temperature T above 100 MeV. This is obtained through the systematical calculation of the axion-light flavor meson scattering amplitudes within the framework of the chiral unitarization approach, paying special attention to the aK↔πK reaction. Hadron resonances appearing in aK↔πK amplitudes significantly enlarge the cross sections, which turn out to be much bigger than that of aπ↔ππ. The axion thermalization rate is then substantially enhanced by the aK↔πK channel for T≳100  MeV. Especially at T≃130  MeV, the contribution from the aK↔πK reaction to the axion thermalization rate exceeds the aπ↔ππ one. Obviously more stringent constraints on the axion parameters are obtained, when confronting the number of extra relativistic degrees of freedom ΔNeff from Planck′18.

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Phys. Rev. D 112, L031701– Published 6 August, 2025
  • Received 30 May 2025
  • Accepted 22 July 2025
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