Searching for Ultralight Dark Matter with Optical Cavities

We discuss the use of optical cavities as tools to search for dark matter (DM) composed of virialized ultralight fields (VULFs). Such fields could lead to oscillating fundamental constants, resulting in oscillations of the length of rigid bodies. We propose searching for these effects via differenti...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPhysical review letters Vol. 123; no. 3; p. 031304
Main Authors Geraci, Andrew A, Bradley, Colin, Gao, Dongfeng, Weinstein, Jonathan, Derevianko, Andrei
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 19.07.2019
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Summary:We discuss the use of optical cavities as tools to search for dark matter (DM) composed of virialized ultralight fields (VULFs). Such fields could lead to oscillating fundamental constants, resulting in oscillations of the length of rigid bodies. We propose searching for these effects via differential strain measurement of rigid and suspended-mirror cavities. We estimate that more than 2 orders of magnitude of unexplored phase space for VULF DM couplings can be probed at VULF Compton frequencies in the audible range of 0.1-10 kHz.
ISSN:1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.031304