Free streaming length of axion-like particle after oscillon/I-ball decays

Axion-like particles (ALPs) are pseudoscalar bosons predicted by string theory. The ALPs have a shallower potential than a quadratic one, which induces the instability and can form the solitonic object called oscillon/I-ball. Although the lifetime of oscillons can be very long for some type of potentials, they finally decay until the present. We perform the numerical lattice simulations to investigate the decay process of oscillons and evaluate the averaged momentum of ALPs emitted from the oscillon decay. It is found that, if oscillons decay in the early universe, the free-streaming length of ALPs becomes too long to explain the small-scale observations of the matter power spectrum. We show that oscillons with long lifetimes can change the density fluctuations on small scales, which leads to stringent constraints on the ALP mass and the oscillon lifetime.

Automated summary

Axion-like particles (ALPs) are pseudoscalar bosons predicted by string theory. They can form solitonic objects called oscillon/I-balls due to their shallower potential. We perform numerical lattice simulations to study the decay process of oscillons and evaluate the momentum of ALPs emitted from the decay. We find that if oscillons decay in the early universe, the free-streaming length of ALPs becomes too long to explain small-scale observations of the matter power spectrum. Long-lived oscillons can affect density fluctuations on small scales, imposing stringent constraints on the ALP mass and oscillon lifetime.