Signal-to-noise ratio for a stochastic background of massive relic particles

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the potential for current gravitational detectors to identify a stochastic background of massive scalar particles, possibly revealing non-relativistic dark matter components.

Contribution

It provides an estimation of the signal-to-noise ratio for detecting massive scalar waves, highlighting the feasibility of observing dark matter signals with existing detectors.

Findings

Current sensitivity may detect non-relativistic dark matter signals

Detection is possible even with weak coupling

Mass range near detector sensitivity band

Abstract

We estimate the signal-to-noise ratio for two gravitational detectors interacting with a stochastic background of massive scalar waves. We find that the present experimental level of sensitivity could be already enough to detect a signal from a light but non-relativistic component of dark matter, even if the coupling is weak enough to exclude observable deviations from standard gravitational interactions, provided the mass is not too far from the sensitivity and overlapping band of the two detectors.