Abstract: The next generation of axion direct detection experiments may rule out or confirm axions as the dominant source of dark matter. In this talk I will describe how to develop a general likelihood-based framework for studying the time-series data at such experiments to search for signatures of the QCD axion or axion like particles. I will illustrate how in the event of a detection the likelihood framework may be used to extract measures of the local dark matter phase-space distribution, accounting for effects such as annual modulation and gravitational focusing, which is the perturbation to the dark matter phase-space distribution by the gravitational field of the Sun.
Moreover, I will show how potential dark matter substructure, such as cold dark matter streams or a thick dark disk, could impact the signal. The likelihood formalism, and the results derived with it, are generally applicable to any time-series based approach to axion direct detection.