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

authored by: Sander M. Vermeulen, Philip Relton, Hartmut Grote, Vivien Raymond, Christoph Affeldt, Fabio Bergamin, Aparna Bisht, Marc Brinkmann, Karsten Danzmann, Suresh Doravari, Volker Kringel, James Lough, Harald Lück, Moritz Mehmet, Nikhil Mukund, Séverin Nadji, Emil Schreiber, Borja Sorazu, Kenneth A. Strain, Henning Vahlbruch, Michael Weinert, Benno Willke, Holger Wittel
Abstract: The nature of dark matter remains unknown to date; several candidate particles are being considered in a dynamically changing research landscape. Scalar field dark matter is a prominent option that is being explored with precision instruments such as atomic clocks and optical cavities. Here we report on the first direct search for scalar field dark matter utilising a gravitational-wave detector operating beyond the quantum shot-noise limit. We set new upper limits for 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 beamsplitter of the GEO\,600 interferometer. The new constraints improve upon bounds from previous direct searches by more than six orders of magnitude and are 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 probed or constrained with direct searches using gravitational-wave detectors and highlights the potential of quantum-enhanced interferometry for dark matter detection.
Organisation(s): Institute of Gravitation Physics
QuantumFrontiers
CRC 1227 Designed Quantum States of Matter (DQ-mat)
External Organisation(s): Cardiff University
Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute)
University of Glasgow
Type: Article
Journal: NATURE
Volume: 600
Pages: 424-428
No. of pages: 5
ISSN: 0028-0836
Publication date: 16.12.2021
Publication status: Published
Peer reviewed: Yes
ASJC Scopus subject areas: General
Electronic version(s): https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.03783v1 (Access: Open)
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04031-y (Access: Open)

BibTeX

@article{e2db9b5f84c34d7284f64e9355ba9eb3,
title = "Direct limits for scalar field dark matter from a gravitational-wave detector",
abstract = "The nature of dark matter remains unknown to date; several candidate particles are being considered in a dynamically changing research landscape. Scalar field dark matter is a prominent option that is being explored with precision instruments such as atomic clocks and optical cavities. Here we report on the first direct search for scalar field dark matter utilising a gravitational-wave detector operating beyond the quantum shot-noise limit. We set new upper limits for 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 beamsplitter of the GEO\,600 interferometer. The new constraints improve upon bounds from previous direct searches by more than six orders of magnitude and are 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 probed or constrained with direct searches using gravitational-wave detectors and highlights the potential of quantum-enhanced interferometry for dark matter detection. ",
keywords = "gr-qc, hep-ph",
author = "Vermeulen, {Sander M.} and Philip Relton and Hartmut Grote and Vivien Raymond and Christoph Affeldt and Fabio Bergamin and Aparna Bisht and Marc Brinkmann and Karsten Danzmann and Suresh Doravari and Volker Kringel and James Lough and Harald L{\"u}ck and Moritz Mehmet and Nikhil Mukund and S{\'e}verin Nadji and Emil Schreiber and Borja Sorazu and Strain, {Kenneth A.} and Henning Vahlbruch and Michael Weinert and Benno Willke and Holger Wittel",
note = "Funding Information: Acknowledgements We thank Y. Stadnik and Y. Michimura for discussion and comments on this work; D. Macleod and P. Hopkins for programming assistance; and M. Tr{\"o}bs and G. Heinzel for permission to use their LPSD code. We are grateful for support from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), grants ST/T006331/1, ST/I006285/1 and ST/L000946/1, the Leverhulme Trust, grant RPG-2019-022, and the universities of Cardiff and Glasgow in the UK, the Bundesministerium f{\"u}r Bildung und Forschung, the state of Lower Saxony in Germany, the Max Planck Society, Leibniz Universit{\"a}t Hannover and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany{\textquoteright}s Excellence Strategy EXC-2123 QuantumFrontiers 390837967. This work was also partly supported by DFG grant SFB/ Transregio 7 on Gravitational Wave Astronomy. We further thank W. Grass for his years of expert infrastructure support for GEO600. This document has been assigned LIGO document number LIGO-P2100053.",
year = "2021",
month = dec,
day = "16",
doi = "10.1038/s41586-021-04031-y",
language = "English",
volume = "600",
pages = "424--428",
journal = "NATURE",
issn = "0028-0836",
publisher = "Nature Publishing Group",
number = "7889",
}