Improved limits on the coupling of ultralight bosonic dark matter to photons from optical atomic clock comparisons

authored by: M. Filzinger, S. Dörscher, R. Lange, J. Klose, M. Steinel, E. Benkler, E. Peik, C. Lisdat, N. Huntemann
Abstract: We present improved constraints on the coupling of ultralight bosonic dark matter to photons based on long-term measurements of two optical frequency ratios. In these optical clock comparisons, we relate the frequency of the ${}^2S_{1/2} (F=0)\leftrightarrow {}^2F_{7/2} (F=3)$ electric-octupole (E3) transition in $^{171}$ Yb $^{+}$ to that of the ${}^2S_{1/2} (F=0)\leftrightarrow \,{}^2D_{3/2} (F=2)$ electric-quadrupole (E2) transition of the same ion, and to that of the ${}^1S_0\leftrightarrow\,{}^3P_0$ transition in $^{87}$ Sr. Measurements of the first frequency ratio $\nu_\textrm{E3}/\nu_\textrm{E2}$ are performed via interleaved interrogation of both transitions in a single ion. The comparison of the single-ion clock based on the E3 transition with a strontium optical lattice clock yields the second frequency ratio $\nu_\textrm{E3}/\nu_\textrm{Sr}$ . By constraining oscillations of the fine-structure constant $\alpha$ with these measurement results, we improve existing bounds on the scalar coupling $d_e$ of ultralight dark matter to photons for dark matter masses in the range of about $10^{-24}-10^{-17}\,\textrm{eV}/c^2$ . These results constitute an improvement by more than an order of magnitude over previous investigations for most of this range. We also use the repeated measurements of $\nu_\textrm{E3}/\nu_\textrm{E2}$ to improve existing limits on a linear temporal drift of $\alpha$ and its coupling to gravity.
External Organisation(s): Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt PTB
Type: Article
Journal: Physical Review Letters
Volume: 130
Pages: 253001
No. of pages: 6
ISSN: 0031-9007
Publication date: 22.06.2023
Publication status: Published
Peer reviewed: Yes
ASJC Scopus subject areas: General Physics and Astronomy
Electronic version(s): https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2301.03433 (Access: Open)
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.253001 (Access: Open)

BibTeX

@article{bd48eb306fc64eeb8c8194a4838a4a53,
title = "Improved limits on the coupling of ultralight bosonic dark matter to photons from optical atomic clock comparisons",
abstract = " We present improved constraints on the coupling of ultralight bosonic dark matter to photons based on long-term measurements of two optical frequency ratios. In these optical clock comparisons, we relate the frequency of the ${}^2S_{1/2} (F=0)\leftrightarrow {}^2F_{7/2} (F=3)$ electric-octupole (E3) transition in $^{171}$ Yb $^{+}$ to that of the ${}^2S_{1/2} (F=0)\leftrightarrow \,{}^2D_{3/2} (F=2)$ electric-quadrupole (E2) transition of the same ion, and to that of the ${}^1S_0\leftrightarrow\,{}^3P_0$ transition in $^{87}$ Sr. Measurements of the first frequency ratio $\nu_\textrm{E3}/\nu_\textrm{E2}$ are performed via interleaved interrogation of both transitions in a single ion. The comparison of the single-ion clock based on the E3 transition with a strontium optical lattice clock yields the second frequency ratio $\nu_\textrm{E3}/\nu_\textrm{Sr}$ . By constraining oscillations of the fine-structure constant $\alpha$ with these measurement results, we improve existing bounds on the scalar coupling $d_e$ of ultralight dark matter to photons for dark matter masses in the range of about $10^{-24}-10^{-17}\,\textrm{eV}/c^2$ . These results constitute an improvement by more than an order of magnitude over previous investigations for most of this range. We also use the repeated measurements of $\nu_\textrm{E3}/\nu_\textrm{E2}$ to improve existing limits on a linear temporal drift of $\alpha$ and its coupling to gravity. ",
keywords = "physics.atom-ph, gr-qc, hep-ph, physics.optics",
author = "M. Filzinger and S. D{\"o}rscher and R. Lange and J. Klose and M. Steinel and E. Benkler and E. Peik and C. Lisdat and N. Huntemann",
note = "Funding Information: We thank Aur{\'e}lien Hees for helpful discussions, Jialiang Yu, Thomas Legero, and Uwe Sterr for providing a stable laser oscillator, and Burghard Lipphardt for experimental support. We acknowledge support by the project 20FUN01 TSCAC, which has received funding from the EMPIR programme co-financed by the Participating States and from the European Union{\textquoteright}s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, and by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany{\textquoteright}s Excellence Strategy—EXC-2123 QuantumFrontiers—Project-ID 390837967 and SFB 1227 DQ-mat—Project-ID 274200144—within project B02. This work was partially supported by the Max Planck–RIKEN–PTB Center for Time, Constants and Fundamental Symmetries. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2023 authors. Published by the American Physical Society.",
year = "2023",
month = jun,
day = "22",
doi = "10.48550/arXiv.2301.03433",
language = "English",
volume = "130",
pages = "253001",
journal = "Physical Review Letters",
issn = "0031-9007",
publisher = "American Physical Society",
number = "25",
}