Production of axions during scattering of Alfven waves by fast-moving Schwarzschild black holes

Abstract

We discuss a novel mechanism of axion production during scattering of Alfven waves by a fast moving Schwarzschild black holes. The process couples classical macroscopic objects, and effectively large amplitude electromagnetic (EM) waves, to microscopic axions. The key ingredient is that the motion of a black hole (BH) across magnetic field creates classical non-zero second Poincare invariant, the electromagnetic anomaly (Lyutikov 2011). In the case of magnetized plasma supporting Alfven wave, it is the fluctuating component of the magnetic field that contributes to the anomaly: for sufficiency small BH moving with the super-Alfvenic velocity the plasma does not have enough time to screen the parallel electric field. This creates time-dependent $ {\bf E} \cdot {\bf B} \neq 0$, and production of axions via the axion-EM coupling.