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Title: Searching for axion stars and Q -balls with a terrestrial magnetometer network

Journal Article · · Physical Review D
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [6];  [7];  [6];  [8]
  1. California State Univ. - East Bay, Hayward, CA (United States)
  2. Johannes Gutenberg-Univ. Mainz, Mainz (Germany); Helmholtz Institut Mainz, Mainz (Germany); Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  3. Univ. of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH (United States); Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
  4. Univ. of Victoria, Victoria, BC (Canada); Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Waterloo, ON (Canada)
  5. Jagiellonian Univ., Krakow (Poland)
  6. Univ. of Fribourg, Fribourg (Switzerland)
  7. Johannes Gutenberg-Univ. Mainz, Mainz (Germany); Helmholtz Institut Mainz, Mainz (Germany)
  8. Johannes Gutenberg-Univ. Mainz, Mainz (Germany)

Light (pseudo-)scalar fields are promising candidates to be the dark matter in the Universe. Under certain initial conditions in the early Universe and/or with certain types of self-interactions, they can form compact dark-matter objects such as axion stars or Q-balls. Direct encounters with such objects can be searched for by using a global network of atomic magnetometers. It is shown that for a range of masses and radii not ruled out by existing observations, the terrestrial encounter rate with axion stars or Q-balls can be sufficiently high (at least once per year) for a detection. However, it is shown that a global network of atomic magnetometers is sufficiently sensitive to pseudoscalar couplings to atomic spins so that a transit through an axion star or Q-ball could be detected over a broad range of unexplored parameter space.

Research Organization:
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-07CH11359; SC0014664
OSTI ID:
1413681
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1419820
Report Number(s):
FERMILAB-PUB-17-559-T; arXiv:1710.04323; PRVDAQ; 1630435
Journal Information:
Physical Review D, Vol. 97, Issue 4; ISSN 2470-0010
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 38 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Search for axionlike dark matter through nuclear spin precession in electric and magnetic fields text January 2017
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Q-Ball Candidates for Self-Interacting Dark Matter text January 2001
Environmental Dependence of Masses and Coupling Constants text January 2007
A SQUID-based microwave cavity search for dark-matter axions text January 2009
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Dark Matter Candidates from Particle Physics and Methods of Detection text January 2010
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Dynamical Boson Stars text January 2012
Constraining dark matter sub-structure with the dynamics of astrophysical systems text January 2012
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Hunting for topological dark matter with atomic clocks text January 2013
Multi-Channel Data Acquisition System with Absolute Time Synchronization text January 2013
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Resonant bar detector constraints on macro dark matter text January 2015
Cosmological Relaxation of the Electroweak Scale text January 2015
Enhanced effects of variation of the fundamental constants in laser interferometers and application to dark matter detection text January 2015
Dielectric Haloscopes: A New Way to Detect Axion Dark Matter text January 2016
Search for domain wall dark matter with atomic clocks on board global positioning system satellites text January 2017
Collisional versus Collisionless Dark Matter text January 2000
Q-ball candidates for self-interacting dark matter text January 2001
Non-Linear Axion Dynamics and Formation of Cosmological Pseudo-Solitons text January 1993
Observability of Gamma Rays from Dark Matter Neutralino Annihilations in the Milky Way Halo text January 1997
Observational evidence for self-interacting cold dark matter text January 1999
FINDCHIRP: an algorithm for detection of gravitational waves from inspiraling compact binaries text January 2005
Particle Dark Matter: Evidence, Candidates and Constraints text January 2004
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Cited By (8)

A cold atom radio-frequency magnetometer journal February 2019
Self-Adaptive Loop for External-Disturbance Reduction in a Differential Measurement Setup journal January 2019
Search for transient ultralight dark matter signatures with networks of precision measurement devices using a Bayesian statistics method journal April 2018
Search for New Physics with Atoms and Molecules text January 2017
Self-adaptive loop for external disturbance reduction in differential measurement set-up text January 2018
Search for transient ultralight dark matter signatures with networks of precision measurement devices using a Bayesian statistics method text January 2018
Axion Cosmology with Early Matter Domination text January 2018
A Cold Atom Radio-Frequency Magnetometer text January 2019

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