Axion dark matter and the 21-cm signal

Abstract: It was shown in ref. [1] that cold dark matter axions reach thermal contact with baryons, and therefore cool them, shortly after the axions thermalize among themselves and form a Bose-Einstein condensate. The recent observation by the EDGES collaboration of a baryon temperature at cosmic dawn lower than expected under "standard" assumptions is interpreted as new evidence that the dark matter is axions, at least in part. Baryon cooling by dark matter axions is found to be consistent with the observation of baryon acoustic oscillations.