Ultralight scalar and axion dark matter detection with atom interferometers

2024/01/30 by Wei Zhao, Hui Liu, Zhao, Wei +3
Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic and Subatomic Physics Research #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2401.17055

openalex publication_date 2024/01/30 · openalex created_date 2024/02/01 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

The detection of dark matter is a challenging problem in modern physics. The ultralight scalar and axion dark matter could induce the oscillation of the nuclear charge radii and then oscillate the atomic transition frequency by interacting with standard model particles. We compute the differential phase shift caused by the scalar and axion dark matter in a pair of separated atom interferometers and give the proposed constraints on the scalar dark matter coupling parameters d_g and d_m as well as the axion dark matter coupling parameter 1/f_a. Our results are expected to improve the current detection level and complement with other experiments.

Related

• Laboratory constraints on ultralight axion-like particles from precision atomic spectroscopy
• Exploration of new experimental strategies for the detection of ultralight dark matter : laboratory searches on ground and in space
• Manifestations of dark matter and variations of fundamental constants in atoms and astrophysical phenomena
• Massive graviton dark matter searches with long-baseline atom interferometers
• Oscillations of atomic energy levels induced by QCD axion dark matter