Implications of the laser excitation of the Th-229 nucleus for dark matter searches

authored by: Elina Fuchs, Fiona Kirk, Eric Madge, Chaitanya Paranjape, Ekkehard Peik, Gilad Perez, Wolfram Ratzinger, Johannes Tiedau
Abstract: The recent laser excitation of the low-lying Th-229 isomer transition is starting a revolution in ultralight dark matter searches. The enhanced sensitivity of this transition to the large class of dark matter models dominantly coupling to quarks and gluons will ultimately allow us to probe coupling strengths eight orders of magnitude smaller than the current bounds from optical atomic clocks, which are mainly sensitive to dark matter couplings to electrons and photons. We argue that, with increasing precision, observations of the Th-229 excitation spectrum will soon give world-leading constraints. Using data from the pioneering laser excitation of Th-229 by Tiedau et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 182501 (2024)], we present a first dark matter search in the excitation spectrum. While the exclusion limits of our detailed study of the lineshape are still below the sensitivity of currently operating clock experiments, we project the measurement of Zhang et al. [arXiv:2406.18719 [physics.atom-ph]] to surpass it.
Organisation(s): Institute of Theoretical Physics
Type: Preprint
Publication date: 22.07.2024
Publication status: E-pub ahead of print

BibTeX

@techreport{6ce94740ef37441bbfd60032be5a226a,
title = "Implications of the laser excitation of the Th-229 nucleus for dark matter searches",
abstract = " The recent laser excitation of the low-lying Th-229 isomer transition is starting a revolution in ultralight dark matter searches. The enhanced sensitivity of this transition to the large class of dark matter models dominantly coupling to quarks and gluons will ultimately allow us to probe coupling strengths eight orders of magnitude smaller than the current bounds from optical atomic clocks, which are mainly sensitive to dark matter couplings to electrons and photons. We argue that, with increasing precision, observations of the Th-229 excitation spectrum will soon give world-leading constraints. Using data from the pioneering laser excitation of Th-229 by Tiedau et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 182501 (2024)], we present a first dark matter search in the excitation spectrum. While the exclusion limits of our detailed study of the lineshape are still below the sensitivity of currently operating clock experiments, we project the measurement of Zhang et al. [arXiv:2406.18719 [physics.atom-ph]] to surpass it. ",
keywords = "hep-ph, nucl-ex, physics.atom-ph",
author = "Elina Fuchs and Fiona Kirk and Eric Madge and Chaitanya Paranjape and Ekkehard Peik and Gilad Perez and Wolfram Ratzinger and Johannes Tiedau",
note = "14 pages, 6 figures",
year = "2024",
month = jul,
day = "22",
language = "English",
type = "WorkingPaper",
}