Detecting ultralight dark matter gravitationally with laser interferometers in space

Abstract

Ultralight dark matter (ULDM) is one of the leading well-motivated dark matter candidates, predicted in many theories beyond the standard model of particle physics and cosmology. There has been increasing interest in searching for ULDM in physical and astronomical experiments, mostly assuming there are additional interactions other than gravity between ULDM and normal matter. Here we demonstrate that even if ULDM has only gravitational interaction, it shall induce gravitational perturbations in solar system that may be large enough to cause detectable signals in future gravitational-wave (GW) laser interferometers in space. We investigate the sensitivities of Michelson time-delay interferometer to ULDM of various spins, and show vector ULDM with mass m≲10−18  eV can be probed by space-based GW detectors aiming at μHz frequencies. Our findings exhibit that GW detectors may directly probe ULDM in some mass ranges that otherwise are challenging to examine. Published by the American Physical Society 2024