Can dark matter induce cosmological evolution of the fundamental constants of Nature?

TL;DR

This paper shows that dark matter fields can cause slow, oscillating changes in fundamental constants over cosmological timescales, with new constraints derived from primordial element abundances and atomic spectroscopy.

Contribution

It introduces a mechanism by which dark matter fields induce cosmological evolution of fundamental constants and provides the most stringent limits on their interactions to date.

Findings

Limits on quadratic interactions with photons, electrons, and quarks improve previous constraints by up to 15 orders of magnitude.

Derived new bounds on linear and quadratic interactions with massive vector bosons from Big Bang nucleosynthesis.

Demonstrated that dark matter can produce observable variations in fundamental constants.

Abstract

We demonstrate that massive fields, such as dark matter, can directly produce a cosmological evolution of the fundamental constants of Nature. We show that a scalar or pseudoscalar (axion-like) dark matter field $\phi$, which forms a coherently oscillating classical field and interacts with Standard Model particles via quadratic couplings in $\phi$, produces `slow' cosmological evolution and oscillating variations of the fundamental constants. We derive limits on the quadratic interactions of $\phi$ with the photon, electron and light quarks from measurements of the primordial $^4$He abundance produced during Big Bang nucleosynthesis and recent atomic dysprosium spectroscopy measurements. These limits improve on existing constraints by up to 15 orders of magnitude. We also derive limits on the previously unconstrained linear and quadratic interactions of $\phi$ with the massive vector bosons from measurements of the primordial $^4$He abundance.