Direct limits for scalar field dark matter from a gravitational-wave detector

Abstract

The nature of dark matter remains unknown to date, although several candidate particles are being considered in a dynamically changing research landscape1. Scalar field dark matter is a prominent option that is being explored with precision instruments, such as atomic clocks and optical cavities2–8. Here we describe a direct search for scalar field dark matter using a gravitational-wave detector, which operates beyond the quantum shot-noise limit. We set new upper limits on the coupling constants of scalar field dark matter as a function of its mass, by excluding the presence of signals that would be produced through the direct coupling of this dark matter to the beam splitter of the GEO600 interferometer. These constraints improve on bounds from previous direct searches by more than six orders of magnitude and are, in some cases, more stringent than limits obtained in tests of the equivalence principle by up to four orders of magnitude. Our work demonstrates that scalar field dark matter can be investigated or constrained with direct searches using gravitational-wave detectors and highlights the potential of quantum-enhanced interferometry for dark matter detection.

New Horizons: Scalar and Vector Ultralight Dark Matter

“…For typical laser frequencies and common dielectric materials, changes in n are generally sub-dominant compared to adiabatic changes in l [59,433], but can become dominant at frequencies far above the fundamental frequency associated with the relevant mechanical resonance of the material [59]. Searches for scalar UDM with Michelson interferometers have been recently performed using older datasets from GEO600 [444] and the Fermilab holometer [445]; see Figs. 11 and 12 for limits on the linear scalar-electron interaction.…”

“…Figs. 11 and 12 show limits from searches for EP violation [30,42,451,452,454,673], atom-cavity experiments [58,60,311,438,439], molecular iodine (I 2 ) experiments [44], the AURIGA experiment [472], optical interferometry experiments [444][445][446], atom interferometry experiments [412], the stellar cooling bounds [274], and astrophysical constraints [19,21,22,24,145,230,239]. Fig.…”

“…The dark yellow line represents bounds from molecular I 2 experiments [44], whereas the cherry-red shaded region represents bounds from the AURIGA experiment [472]. Optical interferometry bounds from GEO600 (dark blue) [444], DAMNED (lilac) [446] and Fermilab Holometer (light turquoise) [445] experiments are also shown. We show the projected sensitivities of the MAGIS experiments by dashed purple and dashed dark green lines [412].…”

SpaceQ -- Direct Detection of Ultralight Dark Matter with Space Quantum Sensors

“…where Λ QCD is the QCD scale and m q is the averaged light quark mass. There are now many dedicated experiments searching for these types of signals [52][53][54][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73].…”

Stochastic Gravitational Wave Background from PBH-ABH Mergers

“…It has been demonstrated that a GW experiment can also be used to look for dark matter candidates, in both ultraheavy (see Ref. [30] and references therein) and ultralight [31][32][33][34][35][36] mass regions. So far, most of the PBH searches using SGWB are focused on PBH-PBH mergers.…”