Department of Physics, University of Nevada, Reno, NV, 89557, USA.
Nevada Geodetic Laboratory, Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology, University of Nevada, Reno, NV, 89557, USA.
Nat Commun. 2017 Oct 30;8(1):1195. doi: 10.1038/s41467-017-01440-4.
Cosmological observations indicate that dark matter makes up 85% of all matter in the universe yet its microscopic composition remains a mystery. Dark matter could arise from ultralight quantum fields that form macroscopic objects. Here we use the global positioning system as a ~ 50,000 km aperture dark matter detector to search for such objects in the form of domain walls. Global positioning system navigation relies on precision timing signals furnished by atomic clocks. As the Earth moves through the galactic dark matter halo, interactions with domain walls could cause a sequence of atomic clock perturbations that propagate through the satellite constellation at galactic velocities ~ 300 km s. Mining 16 years of archival data, we find no evidence for domain walls at our current sensitivity level. This improves the limits on certain quadratic scalar couplings of domain wall dark matter to standard model particles by several orders of magnitude.
宇宙观测表明，暗物质构成了宇宙中所有物质的 85%，但其微观组成仍然是一个谜。暗物质可能来自形成宏观物体的超轻量子场。在这里，我们使用全球定位系统作为一个约 5 万公里孔径的暗物质探测器，以探测以宇宙墙形式存在的暗物质。全球定位系统导航依赖于原子钟提供的精确定时信号。当地球穿过银河暗物质晕时，与宇宙墙的相互作用可能会导致一系列原子钟扰动，这些扰动以银河速度约 300km/s 通过卫星星座传播。通过挖掘 16 年的档案数据，我们在当前的灵敏度水平下没有发现宇宙墙的证据。这将暗物质宇宙墙与标准模型粒子的某些二次标量耦合的限制提高了几个数量级。
