Stellar basins of gravitationally bound particles

A new physical phenomenon is described in detail: volumetric stellar emission into gravitationally bound orbits of weakly coupled particles such as axions, moduli, hidden photons, and neutrinos. While only a tiny fraction of the instantaneous luminosity of a star (the vast majority of the emission is into relativistic modes), the continual injection of these particles into a small part of phase space causes them to accumulate over astrophysically long timescales, forming what I call a stellar basin, in analogy with the geologic kind. The energy density of the solar basin will surpass that of the relativistic solar flux at Earth's location after only a million years, for any sufficiently long-lived particle with mass near the solar core's temperature, and which is produced through an emission process whose matrix elements are unsuppressed at low momentum. This observation has immediate and striking consequences for direct detection experiments-including new limits on axion parameter space independent of dark matter assumptions-and may also increase the prospects for indirect detection of weakly interacting particles around compact stars.

Automated summary

A new physical phenomenon is described, where stars emit weakly-coupled particles into gravitationally bound orbits, forming stellar basins. This phenomenon has significant implications for direct detection experiments and indirect detection of weakly interacting particles around compact stars.