Storage Ring Probes of Dark Matter and Dark Energy

TL;DR

Proton storage ring experiments, originally for detecting electric dipole moments, can also be used to search for dark energy and ultra-light dark matter, achieving sensitivities beyond astrophysical limits and helping distinguish different interaction types.

Contribution

This work demonstrates a novel application of proton storage ring experiments to detect dark matter and dark energy, surpassing current astrophysical constraints.

Findings

Proton storage rings can detect nearly dc spin precession induced by dark energy.

Sensitivity of these experiments exceeds astrophysical limits by three orders of magnitude.

The approach can differentiate between pseudo-scalar, magnetic, and electric dipole interactions.

Abstract

We show that proton storage ring experiments designed to search for proton electric dipole moments can also be used to look for the nearly dc spin precession induced by dark energy and ultra-light dark matter. These experiments are sensitive to both axion-like and vector fields. Current technology permits probes of these phenomena up to three orders of magnitude beyond astrophysical limits. The relativistic boost of the protons in these rings allows this scheme to have sensitivities comparable to atomic co-magnetometer experiments that can also probe similar phenomena. These complementary approaches can be used to extract the micro-physics of a signal, allowing us to distinguish between pseudo-scalar, magnetic and electric dipole moment interactions.