Oswald R, Nevsky A, Vogt V, Schiller S, Figueroa N L, Zhang K, Tretiak O, Antypas D, Budker D, Banerjee A, Perez G
Institut für Experimentalphysik, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany.
Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, 55128 Mainz, Germany and Helmholtz-Institut, GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung, 55128 Mainz, Germany.
Phys Rev Lett. 2022 Jul 15;129(3):031302. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.031302.
A possible implication of an ultralight dark matter field interacting with the standard model degrees of freedom is oscillations of fundamental constants. Here, we establish direct experimental bounds on the coupling of an oscillating ultralight dark matter field to the up, down, and strange quarks and to the gluons, for oscillation frequencies between 10 and 10^{8} Hz. We employ spectroscopic experiments that take advantage of the dependence of molecular transition frequencies on the nuclear masses. Our results apply to previously unexplored frequency bands and improve on existing bounds at frequencies >5 MHz. We also improve on the bounds for coupling to the electromagnetic field and the electron field, in particular spectral windows. We identify a sector of ultralight dark matter and standard model coupling space where the bounds from equivalence principle tests may be challenged by next-generation experiments of the present kind.
与标准模型自由度相互作用的超轻暗物质场的一个可能影响是基本常数的振荡。在此，我们针对振荡频率在10至10⁸赫兹之间的超轻暗物质场与上夸克、下夸克、奇夸克以及胶子的耦合建立了直接实验限制。我们采用利用分子跃迁频率对核质量的依赖性的光谱实验。我们的结果适用于先前未探索的频带，并在频率大于5兆赫兹时改进了现有限制。我们还改进了与电磁场和电子场耦合的限制，特别是光谱窗口方面。我们确定了超轻暗物质与标准模型耦合空间的一个区域，在该区域中，等效原理测试的限制可能会受到此类下一代实验的挑战。
