Probing Bosonic Overdensities with Optomechanical Sensing

TL;DR

This paper explores using optomechanical sensors to detect ultralight bosonic dark matter in gravitationally-bound states like boson stars and halos around the Sun or Earth, highlighting promising detection prospects for certain configurations.

Contribution

It extends optomechanical force sensing methods to search for ultralight dark matter in gravitationally-bound states, analyzing sensitivity for various astrophysical scenarios.

Findings

Boson star encounters with Earth are rare and unlikely to be detected.

Optomechanical sensors can effectively search for solar and Earth-bound bosonic halos.

Current technology offers promising sensitivity for detecting certain dark matter configurations.

Abstract

Previous work has shown that optomechanical force sensing can be used for efficient detection of ultralight (sub-eV) dark matter candidates. We propose to extend the reach of this method to the search for ultralight dark matter in gravitationally-bound configurations in the Milky Way. We consider three scenarios, each strongly-motivated by previous studies: boson stars traveling in the galaxy with virial velocity; a bosonic halo centered around the Sun (a `solar halo'); and a bosonic halo centered around the Earth. For each case, we consider bound states composed of either scalar particles with a Yukawa coupling, or vector particles coupled to baryon minus lepton number charge. Accounting for all experimental constraints on coupling strength, we estimate the sensitivity reach of an optomechanical sensor search. We conclude that, although boson star encounters with Earth would be too infrequent to be detected in the relevant parameter space, current optomechanical force sensing technologies provide promising search capabilities for solar or Earth-bound halos.