Intensity interferometry for ultralight bosonic dark matter detection

Open Access

Intensity interferometry for ultralight bosonic dark matter detection

Hector Masia-Roig, Nataniel L. Figueroa, Ariday Bordon, Joseph A. Smiga, Yevgeny V. Stadnik, Dmitry Budker, Gary P. Centers, Alexander V. Gramolin, Paul S. Hamilton, Sami Khamis, Christopher A. Palm, Szymon Pustelny, Alexander O. Sushkov, Arne Wickenbrock, and Derek F. Jackson Kimball

Phys. Rev. D 108, 015003 – Published 5 July 2023

Abstract

Ultralight bosonic dark matter (UBDM) can be described by a classical wavelike field oscillating near the Compton frequency of the bosons. If a measurement scheme for the direct detection of UBDM interactions is sensitive to a signature quadratic in the field, then there is a near-zero-frequency (dc) component of the signal. Thus, a detector with a given finite bandwidth can be used to search for bosons with Compton frequencies many orders of magnitude larger than its bandwidth. This opens the possibility of a detection scheme analogous to Hanbury Brown and Twiss intensity interferometry. Assuming that the UBDM is virialized in the Galactic gravitational potential, the random velocities produce slight deviations from the Compton frequency. These result in stochastic fluctuations of the intensity on a timescale determined by the spread in kinetic energies. In order to mitigate ubiquitous local low-frequency noise, a network of sensors can be used to search for the stochastic intensity fluctuations by measuring cross-correlation between the sensors. This method is inherently broadband, since a large range of Compton frequencies will yield near-zero-frequency components within the sensor bandwidth that can be searched for simultaneously. Measurements with existing sensor networks have sufficient sensitivity to search experimentally unexplored parameter space.

Received 13 February 2022
Accepted 19 May 2023

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.108.015003

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP³.

Published by the American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Atomic & molecular processes in external fields Atomic, optical & lattice clocks Dark matter

Atomic, Molecular & OpticalGravitation, Cosmology & Astrophysics

Authors & Affiliations

Hector Masia-Roig ^1,2,*, Nataniel L. Figueroa ^1,2,†, Ariday Bordon ^1,2,‡, Joseph A. Smiga ^1,2, Yevgeny V. Stadnik ³, Dmitry Budker ^1,2,4, Gary P. Centers ^1,2, Alexander V. Gramolin ⁵, Paul S. Hamilton⁶, Sami Khamis⁶, Christopher A. Palm⁷, Szymon Pustelny ⁸, Alexander O. Sushkov^5,9,10, Arne Wickenbrock^1,2, and Derek F. Jackson Kimball^7,§

¹Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, 55128 Mainz, Germany
²Helmholtz-Institut Mainz, GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung, 55128 Mainz, Germany
³School of Physics, The University of Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia
⁴Department of Physics, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720-7300, USA
⁵Department of Physics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA
⁶Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA
⁷Department of Physics, California State University—East Bay, Hayward, California 94542-3084, USA
⁸Institute of Physics, Jagiellonian University, 30-059 Kraków, Poland
⁹Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA
¹⁰Photonics Center, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA

^*hemasiar@uni-mainz.de
^†figueroa@uni-mainz.de
^‡aridaybordon@gmail.com
^§derek.jacksonkimball@csueastbay.edu

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Issue

Vol. 108, Iss. 1 — 1 July 2023

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Images

Figure 1
Degree of first-order coherence as a function of delay time $τ$ for $φ_{s}^{2}$ and different projections of the gradient $\nabla φ_{s}^{2}$ relative to $v_{lab}$ . Each curve is the result of 100 averages simulating $10^{3}$ particles, where the mean was subtracted. The approximate values of the coherence times are given in colors matching their respective plot traces.
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Figure 2
Mass dependence of the coherence time $τ_{c}$ for $φ_{s}^{2}$ and projections of $\nabla φ_{s}^{2}$ . Each point is the result of 100 averages simulating $10^{3}$ particles.
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Figure 3
Estimated parameter space describing ALP dark matter that can be probed by GNOME (dashed line, purple shaded region) and Advanced GNOME (dotted line, light blue shaded region) measuring for $\approx 100 days$ using $N_{m} = 10$ magnetometers [76, 77, 80, 82]. GNOME and Advanced GNOME are sensitive to the interaction of the ALP field with proton spins described by Eq. (6); $f_{q}$ parametrizes the ALP-nucleon coupling strength. The vertical dashed red line marks the Compton frequency and mass for which the ALP coherence length equals the Earth’s diameter. The vertical dashed blue line marks the Compton frequency and mass for which $τ_{c} \approx 24 h$ . The dark red shaded region shows constraints from the NASDUCK experiment [100]. The dark green shaded area represents astrophysical bounds on spin-dependent ALP interactions with nucleons [51, 101]. Note, however, that there are theoretical scenarios where these astrophysical bounds can be circumvented [102].
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Figure 4
Estimated parameter space describing UBDM fields that can be probed by an optical clock network such as those described in Refs. [83, 103] (dotted line, light purple shaded region) in $\approx 100 days$ of searching for correlated stochastic fluctuations using $N_{c} = 10$ clocks, not accounting for (anti)screening from backaction [33, 107], which can play a significant role near Earth’s surface above the long-dashed blue line as indicated by the blue arrow. Clocks are sensitive to the interactions described by Eq. (1); $Λ_{γ}$ parametrizes the strength of the coupling of the ultralight bosons to photons. The vertical dashed red line marks the Compton frequency and mass for which the ultralight boson’s coherence length equals the Earth’s diameter. The dark green shaded area represents astrophysical bounds on such quadratic scalar interactions between ultralight bosons and photons from stellar cooling and observations of supernova 1987a [51, 101]; the light green shaded region represents bounds from big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) [32].
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