New generation low-energy probes for ultralight axion and scalar dark matter

TL;DR

This paper reviews innovative high-precision laboratory and astrophysical techniques designed to detect ultralight axion and scalar dark matter, focusing on linear interaction effects that differ from traditional quadratic methods.

Contribution

It introduces new detection methods that measure linear effects of dark matter interactions, offering potentially more sensitive searches for ultralight dark matter particles.

Findings

New detection techniques target linear interaction effects.

These methods could improve sensitivity over traditional quadratic approaches.

Potential to detect ultralight axion and scalar dark matter more effectively.

Abstract

We present a brief overview of a new generation of high-precision laboratory and astrophysical measurements to search for ultralight (sub-eV) axion, axion-like pseudoscalar and scalar dark matter, which form either a coherent condensate or topological defects (solitons). In these new detection methods, the sought effects are linear in the interaction constant between dark matter and ordinary matter, which is in stark contrast to traditional searches for dark matter, where the sought effects are quadratic or higher order in the underlying interaction constants (which are extremely small).