Using axion miniclusters to disentangle the axion-photon coupling and the dark matter density

Abstract

Dark matter direct (and indirect) detection experiments usually can only determine a specific combination of a power of the coupling and the dark matter density. This is also true for axion haloscopes which are sensitive to the product g 2 aγγρ DM, the combination of axion-photon coupling squared and the dark matter density. In this note we show, that in the lucky case when we intersect with a so-called axion minicluster of a suitable size, we can utilize the spectral information available in haloscopes to determine the gravitational potential of the minicluster. We can then use this to measure separately the coupling and the density of the minicluster.