Ultralight scalar dark matter detection with ZAIGA

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential of the ZAIGA atom interferometer facility to detect ultralight scalar dark matter by analyzing the expected signals and proposing constraints on DM coupling parameters that surpass current experimental limits.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to detect ultralight scalar dark matter using ZAIGA's long-baseline atom interferometers and calculates the expected constraints on DM coupling parameters.

Findings

Constraints on five DM coupling parameters could be several orders of magnitude better than MICROSCOPE.

DM signals in ZAIGA depend on atomic energy levels, masses, and gravitational acceleration.

Vertical and horizontal configurations of ZAIGA provide different sensitivities to DM effects.

Abstract

ZAIGA is a proposed underground long-baseline atom interferometer (AI) facility, aiming for experimental research on gravitation and related problems. In this paper, we study the possibility of detecting the ultralight scalar dark matter (DM) with ZAIGA. According to a popular scalar DM model, the DM field contains a background oscillation term and a local exponential fluctuation term. In order to calculate the proposed constraints on DM coupling parameters, we need to first compute the DM signals in ZAIGA. For the case of two AIs vertically separated by 300 meters, the DM-induced differential phase consists of three contributions, coming from the DM-induced changes in atomic internal energy levels, atomic masses and the gravitational acceleration. For the case of two AIs horizontally separated by several kilometers, the signal comes from the DM-induced changes in atomic internal energy levels. With the current and future technical parameters of ZAIGA, we then obtain the proposed constraints on five DM coupling parameters. It turns out that our proposed constraints could be several orders of magnitude better than the ones set by the MICROSCOPE space mission.