Sensitivity of Atom Interferometry to Ultralight Scalar Field Dark Matter
Open Access
- 20 December 2016
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review Letters
- Vol. 117 (26), 261301
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.117.261301
Abstract
We discuss the use of atom interferometry as a tool to search for dark matter (DM) composed of virialized ultralight fields (VULFs). Previous work on VULF DM detection using accelerometers has considered the possibility of equivalence-principle-violating effects whereby gradients in the dark matter field can directly produce relative accelerations between media of differing composition. In atom interferometers, we find that time-varying phase signals induced by coherent oscillations of DM fields can also arise due to changes in the atom rest mass that can occur between light pulses throughout the interferometer sequence as well as changes in Earth’s gravitational field. We estimate that several orders of magnitude of unexplored phase space for VULF DM couplings can be probed due to these new effects.Keywords
Other Versions
Funding Information
- National Science Foundation
This publication has 32 references indexed in Scilit:
- Enhanced effects of variation of the fundamental constants in laser interferometers and application to dark-matter detectionPhysical Review A, 2016
- Sound of Dark Matter: Searching for Light Scalars with Resonant-Mass DetectorsPhysical Review Letters, 2016
- Searching for dilaton dark matter with atomic clocksPhysical Review D, 2015
- Hunting for topological dark matter with atomic clocksNature Physics, 2014
- Resonantly Detecting Axion-Mediated Forces with Nuclear Magnetic ResonancePhysical Review Letters, 2014
- Proposal for a Cosmic Axion Spin Precession Experiment (CASPEr)Physical Review X, 2014
- First Results from the LUX Dark Matter Experiment at the Sanford Underground Research FacilityPhysical Review Letters, 2014
- Dark Matter Candidates from Particle Physics and Methods of DetectionAnnual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 2010
- Optics and interferometry with atoms and moleculesReviews of Modern Physics, 2009
- Particle dark matter: evidence, candidates and constraintsPhysics Reports, 2005