What can a GNOME do? Search targets for the Global Network of Optical Magnetometers for Exotic physics searches

TL;DR

The paper describes the GNOME project, a global network of optical magnetometers designed to detect signals from exotic particles and fields that could indicate physics beyond the Standard Model.

Contribution

It provides an overview of the GNOME experimental setup and surveys potential signals from various exotic physics scenarios, expanding the search for new fundamental particles.

Findings

Survey of potential signals from topological defect dark matter

Detection strategies for axion-like particle phenomena

Analysis of stochastic fluctuations in bosonic dark matter fields

Abstract

Numerous observations suggest that there exist undiscovered beyond-the-Standard-Model particles and fields. Because of their unknown nature, these exotic particles and fields could interact with Standard Model particles in many different ways and assume a variety of possible configurations. Here we present an overview of the Global Network of Optical Magnetometers for Exotic physics searches (GNOME), our ongoing experimental program designed to test a wide range of exotic physics scenarios. The GNOME experiment utilizes a worldwide network of shielded atomic magnetometers (and, more recently, comagnetometers) to search for spatially and temporally correlated signals due to torques on atomic spins from exotic fields of astrophysical origin. We survey the temporal characteristics of a variety of possible signals currently under investigation such as those from topological defect dark matter (axion-like particle domain walls), axion-like particle stars, solitons of complex-valued scalar fields (Q-balls), stochastic fluctuations of bosonic dark matter fields, a solar axion-like particle halo, and bursts of ultralight bosonic fields produced by cataclysmic astrophysical events such as binary black hole mergers.