Blas Diego, Nacir Diana López, Sibiryakov Sergey
Theoretical Physics Department, CERN, CH-1211 Genève 23, Switzerland.
Institute of Physics, LPPC, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
Phys Rev Lett. 2017 Jun 30;118(26):261102. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.261102. Epub 2017 Jun 29.
We consider the scenario where dark matter (DM) is represented by an ultralight classical scalar field performing coherent periodic oscillations. We point out that such DM perturbs the dynamics of binary systems either through its gravitational field or via direct coupling to ordinary matter. This perturbation gets resonantly amplified if the frequency of DM oscillations is close to a (half-)integer multiple of the orbital frequency of the system and leads to a secular variation of the orbital period. We suggest using binary pulsars as probes of this scenario and estimate their sensitivity. While the current accuracy of observations is not yet sufficient to probe the purely gravitational effect of DM, it already yields constraints on direct coupling that are competitive with other bounds. The sensitivity will increase with the upcoming radio observatories such as the Square Kilometer Array.
暗物质（DM）由一个进行相干周期性振荡的超轻经典标量场表示。我们指出，这种暗物质要么通过其引力场，要么通过与普通物质的直接耦合来扰动双星系统的动力学。如果暗物质振荡的频率接近系统轨道频率的（半）整数倍，这种扰动会被共振放大，并导致轨道周期的长期变化。我们建议使用双脉冲星作为这种情形的探测器，并估计它们的灵敏度。虽然目前的观测精度还不足以探测暗物质的纯引力效应，但它已经对直接耦合产生了与其他限制相当的约束。随着即将到来的平方公里阵列等射电天文台的出现，灵敏度将会提高。
