Distinguishing between dark-matter interactions with gravitational-wave detectors

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that Wiener filtering can effectively identify and distinguish between different types of ultralight dark-matter interactions in gravitational-wave detector data, aiding in dark matter detection efforts.

Contribution

It introduces the use of Wiener filtering to differentiate between scalar and vector dark-matter interactions in gravitational-wave data, a novel approach in this context.

Findings

Wiener filter successfully identifies dark-matter interaction signals in simulations.

Applied to LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA data, the method found signals consistent with noise.

The approach can confirm or rule out dark-matter interactions in gravitational-wave data.

Abstract

Ground-based gravitational-wave interferometers could directly probe the existence of ultralight dark matter ($\mathcal{O}(10^{-14}-10^{-11})$ eV/$c^2$) that couples to standard-model particles in the detectors. Recently, many techniques have been developed to extract a variety of potential dark-matter signals from noisy gravitational-wave data; however, little effort has gone into ways to distinguish between types of dark matter that could directly interact with the interferometers. In this work, we employ the Wiener filter to follow-up candidate dark-matter interaction signals. The filter captures the stochastic nature of these signals, and, in simulations, successfully identifies which type of dark matter interacts with the interferometers. We apply the Wiener filter to outliers that remained in the LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA search for dark photons in data from the most recent observing (O3), and show that they are consistent with noise disturbances. Our proof-of-concept analysis demonstrates that the Wiener filter can be a powerful technique to confirm or deny the presence of dark-matter interaction signals in gravitational-wave data, and distinguish between scalar and vector dark-matter interactions.