We report on the first Earth-scale quantum sensor network based on optical atomic clocks aimed at dark matter (DM) detection. Exploiting differences in the susceptibilities to the fine-structure ...constant of essential parts of an optical atomic clock, i.e., the cold atoms and the optical reference cavity, we can perform sensitive searches for DM signatures without the need for real-time comparisons of the clocks. We report a two orders of magnitude improvement in constraints on transient variations of the fine-structure constant, which considerably improves the detection limit for the standard model (SM)-DM coupling. We use Yb and Sr optical atomic clocks at four laboratories on three continents to search for both topological defect and massive scalar field candidates. No signal consistent with a DM coupling is identified, leading to considerably improved constraints on the DM-SM couplings.
We report preliminary results of dark mater searches within the worldwide network made of our laboratories. We demonstrate that data routinely collected by our currently operating optical atomic ...clocks without any further developments of the experimental set-ups may be used to run a global program aimed on searches of dark matter.
We describe optical atomic clocks readouts' analysis and provide a recipe for analysing data from transcontinental network made of already existing optical atomic clocks to search for dark-matter ...signatures. We show how to correlate the data and we discuss methods of computing cross-correlation of more than two readouts. Furthermore, we show how to analyse the data from a network of many clocks to exceed previously reported limits on oscillating massive scalar fields couplings to standard matter.
We report on the first earth-scale quantum sensor network based on optical atomic clocks aimed at dark matter (DM) detection. Exploiting differences in the susceptibilities to the fine-structure ...constant of essential parts of an optical atomic clock, i.e. the cold atoms and the optical reference cavity, we can perform sensitive searches for dark matter signatures without the need of real-time comparisons of the clocks. We report a two orders of magnitude improvement in constraints on transient variations of the fine-structure constant, which considerably improves the detection limit for the standard model (SM) - DM coupling. We use Yb and Sr optical atomic clocks at four laboratories on three continents to search for both topological defect (TD) and massive scalar field candidates. No signal consistent with a dark-matter coupling is identified, leading to significantly improved constraints on the DM-SM couplings.
PDF
