Postinflationary quenched production of axion S U ( 2 ) dark matter

The relic abundance of vector dark matter originating from an inherited axion-SU(2) condensate is typically determined by implementing an adiabatic matching procedure across the symmetry-breaking transition. We demonstrate that this outcome does not arise in the generic case. The postinflationary crossover can be formulated as a dynamical quantum quench problem, in which the residual coherent component of the field is characterized by a survival factor that induces an order-unity renormalization of the standard abundance relation. Expressed in conformal time, the spatially homogeneous condensate dynamics reduce to those of a canonical oscillator with quartic and quadratic self-interactions. This representation enables an analytic determination of the matching conditions across the symmetry-breaking transition, the derivation of the corresponding quench work and excess energy relations, and a quantitative validation of the coherent sector description via numerical simulations in both Minkowski and Friedmann-Robertson-Walker backgrounds. We also formulate the homogeneous fluctuation theory via the diagonal- S O ( 3 ) 1 ⊕ 3 ⊕ 5 decomposition and isolate a soft traceless-symmetric quintet with a k = 0 vacuum obstruction, a regulated ultraviolet adiabatic bound, and a positive quartic stabilization term. Collectively, these results refine the theoretical description of inherited non-Abelian dark matter production and establish the necessary infrared framework for subsequent investigations of finite- k gauge-Higgs transfer dynamics.