Squeezing and Decoherence of Axion Dark Matter

Bosonic particles beyond the Standard Model, such as axions, are among the leading candidates for dark matter. If such particles have a small mass, they are usually described as a purely classical field. However, it was recently shown that this description is incomplete: their inherent gravitational self-interactions result in the squeezing of the field, which is a quantum characteristic that is beyond the classical description. Here we analyze squeezing of light dark matter in the presence of decoherence. We show that squeezing is continuously generated rapidly enough to survive dissipation, and it may also remain present under thermal fluctuations and dephasing. Our results demonstrate that dark matter might possess persistent quantum features and motivate further investigation of their implications for dark matter detection.