The detection of gravitational waves from merging binaries has ushered in the era of gravitational wave interferometer astronomy. Besides these strong, transient, calamitous events, much weaker signals can be detected if the oscillations are nearly monochromatic and "continuous", that is, coherent over a long time. In this work we show that ultra-light dark matter of spin two, owing to its universal coupling $α$ to Standard Model fields, generates a signal that is akin to but distinct from a continuous gravitational wave. We show that this signal could be detected with current and planned gravitational wave interferometers. In the event of a null detection, current facilities could constrain the coupling to be below $α\sim10^{-7}$ for frequencies of tens of Hz, corresponding to dark matter masses around the $10^{-13}$ eV mark. Future facilities could further lower these upper limits and extend them to smaller masses down to $10^{-18}$ eV. These limits would be the most stringent bounds on the spin-2 Yukawa fifth force strength, parametrised by $α$, in the frequency ranges accessible by gravitational wave interferometers. The implementation of this type of searches for gravitational wave interferometers would therefore further our grasp of both dark matter and gravity.
Signatures of Ultralight Dark Matter in Space-Based Laser Interferometers
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS)（中国科学院大学）；International Center for Theoretical Physics Asia-Pacific（亚太理论物理中心）；School of Fundamental Physics and Mathematical Sciences, Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, UCAS（杭州高等研究院基础物理与数学科学学院）
Distinguishing Monochromatic Signals in LISA and Taiji: Ultralight Dark Matter versus Gravitational Waves
School of Fundamental Physics and Mathematical Sciences, Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, UCAS（杭州高等研究院基础物理与数学学院）；Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院理论物理研究所）；University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS)（中国科学院大学）；International Center for Theoretical Physics Asia-Pacific（亚太理论物理中心）
Atom interferometry is a powerful experimental technique that can be employed to search for the oscillation of atomic transition energies induced by ultralight scalar dark matter (ULDM). Previous studies have focused on the sensitivity to ULDM of km-length atom gradiometers, where atom interferometers are located at the ends of very long baselines. In this work, we generalize the treatment of the time-dependent signal induced by a linearly-coupled scalar ULDM candidate for vertical atom gradiometers of any length and find correction factors that especially impact the ULDM signal in short-basel…
Probing Spin-2 Ultralight Dark Matter with Space-based Gravitational Wave Detectors in the mHz Regime
Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, UCAS（杭州高等研究院，中国科学院大学）；University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学）；National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院国家天文台）；Ningbo University（宁波大学）；Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院理论物理研究所）
Identifying Monochromatic Signals in LISA and Taiji via Spectral Split: Gravitational Waves versus Ultralight Dark Matter
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS)（中国科学院大学）；Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, UCAS（杭州高等研究院，中国科学院大学）；Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院理论物理研究所）；International Center for Theoretical Physics Asia-Pacific（亚太理论物理中心）；School of Astronomy and Space Science, UCAS（天文学与空间科学学院，中国科学院大学）
Single-photon atom gradiometry is a powerful experimental technique that can be employed to search for the oscillation of atomic transition energies induced by ultralight scalar dark matter (ULDM). In the sub-Hz regime the background is expected to be dominated by gravity gradient noise (GGN), which arises as a result of mass fluctuations around the experiment. In this work we model the GGN as surface Rayleigh waves, and we construct a likelihood-based analysis that consistently folds GGN into the sensitivity estimates of vertical atom gradiometers in the frequency window between 1 mHz and 1 H…
Many recent works have shown that the angular resolution of ground-based detectors is too poor to characterize the anisotropies of the stochastic gravitational-wave background (SGWB). For this reason, we asked ourselves if a constellation of space-based instruments could be more suitable. We consider the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), a constellation of multiple LISA-like clusters, and the Deci-hertz Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (DECIGO). Specifically, we test whether these detector constellations can probe the anisotropies of the SGWB. For this scope, we considere…
Searching for cosmological stochastic backgrounds by notching out resolvable compact binary foregrounds with next-generation gravitational-wave detectors
With several dozen binary black hole events detected by LIGO/Virgo to date and many more expected in the next few years, gravitational-wave astronomy is shifting from individual-event analyses to population studies. Using the GWTC-2 catalog, we perform a hierarchical Bayesian analysis that for the first time combines several state-of-the-art astrophysical formation models with a population of primordial black holes (PBHs) and constrains the fraction of a putative subpopulation of PBHs in the data. We find that this fraction depends significantly on the set of assumed astrophysical models. Whil…
Any slight variations in the fundamental constants of Nature, which may be induced by dark matter or some yet-to-be-discovered cosmic field, would characteristically alter the phase of a light beam inside an interferometer, which can be measured extremely precisely. Laser and maser interferometry may be applied to searches for the linear-in-time drift of the fundamental constants, detection of topological defect dark matter through transient-in-time effects and for a relic, coherently oscillating condensate, which consists of scalar dark matter fields, through oscillating effects. Our proposed…
We study the prospects of future gravitational wave (GW) detectors in probing primordial black hole (PBH) binaries. We show that across a broad mass range from $10^{-5}M_\odot$ to $10^7M_\odot$, future GW interferometers provide a potential probe of the PBH abundance that is more sensitive than any currently existing experiment. In particular, we find that galactic PBH binaries with masses as low as $10^{-5}M_\odot$ may be probed with ET, AEDGE and LISA by searching for nearly monochromatic continuous GW signals. Such searches could independently test the PBH interpretation of the ultrashort m…
Axion-like particles are a broad class of dark matter candidates which are expected to behave as a coherent, classical field with a weak coupling to photons. Research into the detectability of these particles with laser interferometers has recently revealed a number of promising experimental designs. Inspired by these ideas, we propose the Axion Detection with Birefringent Cavities (ADBC) experiment, a new axion interferometry concept using a cavity that exhibits birefringence between its two, linearly polarized laser eigenmodes. This experimental concept overcomes several limitations of the d…
While global cosmological and local galactic abundance of dark matter is well established, its identity, physical size and composition remain a mystery. In this paper, we analyze an important question of dark matter detectability through its gravitational interaction, using current and next generation gravitational-wave observatories to look for macroscopic (kilogram-scale or larger) objects. Keeping the size of the dark matter objects to be smaller than the physical dimensions of the detectors, and keeping their mass as free parameters, we derive the expected event rates. For favorable choice…
Dark matter exists in our Universe, but its nature remains mysterious. The remarkable sensitivity of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) may be able to solve this mystery. A good dark matter candidate is the ultralight dark photon. Because of its interaction with ordinary matter, it induces displacements on LIGO mirrors that can lead to an observable signal. In a study that bridges gravitational wave science and particle physics, we perform a direct dark matter search using data from LIGO's first (O1) data run, as opposed to an indirect search for dark matter via its…
We propose to search for scalar dark matter via its effects on the electromagnetic fine-structure constant and particle masses. Scalar dark matter that forms an oscillating classical field produces `slow' linear-in-time drifts and oscillating variations of the fundamental constants, while scalar dark matter that forms topological defects produces transient-in-time variations of the constants of Nature. These variations can be sought for with atomic clock, laser interferometer and pulsar timing measurements. Atomic spectroscopy and Big Bang nucleosynthesis measurements already give improved bou…
The recent claim by the NANOGrav collaboration of a possible detection of an isotropic gravitational wave background stimulated a series of investigations searching for the origin of such a signal. The QCD phase transition appears as a natural candidate and in this paper the gravitational spectrum generated during the conversion of quarks into hadrons is calculated. Here, contrary to recent studies, equations of state for the quark-gluon plasma issued from the lattice approach were adopted. The duration of the transition, an important parameter affecting the amplitude of the gravitational wave…
Gravitational wave signatures from cosmic strings are analyzed numerically. Cosmic string networks form during phase transistions in the early universe and these networks of long cosmic strings break into loops that radiate energy in the form of gravitational waves until they decay. The gravitational waves come in the form of harmonic modes from individual string loops, a "confusion noise" from galactic loops, and a stochastic background of gravitational waves from a network of loops. In this study string loops of larger size $α$ and lower string tensions $Gμ$ (where $μ$ is the mass per unit l…
A first order phase transition at the electroweak scale would lead to the production of gravitational waves that may be observable at upcoming space-based gravitational wave (GW) detectors such as LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna). As the Standard Model has no phase transition, LISA can be used to search for new physics by searching for a stochastic gravitational wave background. In this work we investigate LISA's sensitivity to the thermodynamic parameters encoded in the stochastic background produced by a phase transition, using the sound shell model to characterise the gravitational…
Rapid advancement in the observation of cosmic strings has been made in recent years placing increasingly stringent constraints on their properties, with $Gμ\lesssim 10^{-11}$ from Pulsar Timing Array (PTA). Cosmic string loops with low string tension clump in the Galaxy due to slow loop decay and low gravitational recoil, resulting in great enhancement to loop abundance in the Galaxy. With an average separation of down to just a fraction of a kpc, and the total power of gravitational wave (GW) emission dominated by harmonic modes spanning a wide angular scale, resolved loops located in proxim…
