Searching for Scalar Dark Matter with Compact Mechanical Resonators

Ultralight scalars are an interesting dark matter candidate that may produce a mechanical signal by modulating the Bohr radius. Recently it has been proposed to search for this signal using resonant-mass antennas. Here, we extend that approach to a new class of existing and near term compact (gram t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPhysical review letters Vol. 124; no. 15; p. 151301
Main Authors Manley, Jack, Wilson, Dalziel J, Stump, Russell, Grin, Daniel, Singh, Swati
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 17.04.2020
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Summary:Ultralight scalars are an interesting dark matter candidate that may produce a mechanical signal by modulating the Bohr radius. Recently it has been proposed to search for this signal using resonant-mass antennas. Here, we extend that approach to a new class of existing and near term compact (gram to kilogram mass) acoustic resonators composed of superfluid helium or single crystal materials, producing displacements that are accessible with opto- or electromechanical readout techniques. We find that a large unprobed parameter space can be accessed using ultrahigh-Q, cryogenically cooled centimeter-scale mechanical resonators operating at 100 Hz-100 MHz frequencies, corresponding to 10^{-12}-10^{-6}  eV scalar mass range.
ISSN:1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.151301