Search for oscillating fundamental constants using a paired detector and vibrational spectroscopy

TL;DR

This paper introduces a paired detector method using vibrational spectroscopy to search for oscillating fundamental constants caused by ultralight dark matter, achieving improved bounds on their coupling constants in specific frequency ranges.

Contribution

The paper proposes and demonstrates a novel paired detector approach with vibrational spectroscopy to enhance sensitivity in detecting oscillating fundamental constants due to ultralight dark matter.

Findings

Improved bounds on UDM coupling constants to nuclear and electron masses.

Demonstrated suppression of noise using paired detectors.

Achieved strongest bounds in the 10-500 Hz and 10-122 kHz frequency ranges.

Abstract

Ultralight dark matter (UDM) may manifest itself through oscillating fundamental constants of normal matter. These can be experimentally searched for by implementing two dissimilar oscillators producing a beat between their frequencies and analyzing the beat-frequency time series for the presence of any temporal oscillations. Typically, the time series of such a detector contains contributions from nonstationary noise. In order to reduce the influence of such noise we propose and demonstrate paired detectors: two nominally identical detectors whose signals are synchronously recorded. The cross-spectrum of the two individual beat time series is then analyzed for UDM signatures. This approach permits us to suppress spurious signals appearing in uncorrelated fashion in either detector. We furthermore demonstrate detectors that are based on a vibrational molecular transition, which are advantageous due to their larger sensitivity to oscillations of the nuclear masses. The analysis of 274 hours of data yielded improved bounds for the coupling constants of UDM to nuclear mass and to electron mass in the frequency ranges 10-500 Hz and 10-122 kHz, with improvement factors between 6 and 10. These bounds are currently the strongest. Similar bounds are obtained for the fine-structure constant. The present approach may be generalized to large ensembles of detectors.