Searching for dark matter and variation of fundamental constants with laser and maser interferometry

TL;DR

This paper proposes using laser and maser interferometry to detect variations in fundamental constants potentially caused by dark matter or cosmic fields, offering a sensitive and minimally invasive method to explore new physics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel application of interferometry for detecting dark matter and variations in fundamental constants with minimal modifications to existing setups.

Findings

Interferometry can detect linear drifts in fundamental constants.

Transient effects from topological defect dark matter can be observed.

Oscillating effects from scalar dark matter fields are measurable.

Abstract

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 experiments require either minor or no modifications of existing apparatus, and offer extensive reach into important and unconstrained spaces of physical parameters.