Atomic Enhancements in the Detection of Axions

Proposed bolometric and supercolloidal detectors can measure energy depositions of the order of atomic energies. At these energies, atomic bound state effects lead to great enhancements in the detection of absorbable weakly interacting particles. In this paper we compute these enhancements taking into account all Coulomb effects for nonrelativistic electrons. As an example, we show that solar axions could give event rates 104-105 times larger than published neutrino detector design capabilities. Thus, relatively small detectors might see solar axions.