Cosmological signatures of ultralight dark matter with an axionlike potential

Abstract

Nonlinearities in a realistic axion field potential may play an important role in the cosmological dynamics. In this paper we use the Boltzmann code CLASS to solve the background and linear perturbations evolution of an axion field and contrast our results with those of CDM and the free axion case. We conclude that there is a slight delay in the onset of the axion field oscillations when nonlinearities in the axion potential are taken into account. Besides, we identify a tachyonic instability of linear modes resulting in the presence of a bump in the power spectrum at small scales. Some comments are in turn about the true source of the tachyonic instability, how the parameters of the axionlike potential can be constrained by Ly-$\alpha$ observations, and the consequences in the stability of self-gravitating objects made of axions.