Bhattacharya Sulagna, Dasgupta Basudeb, Laha Ranjan, Ray Anupam
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Homi Bhabha Road, Mumbai 400005, India.
Centre for High Energy Physics, Indian Institute of Science, C. V. Raman Avenue, Bengaluru 560012, India.
Phys Rev Lett. 2023 Sep 1;131(9):091401. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.131.091401.
Dark matter (DM) from the galactic halo can accumulate in neutron stars and transmute them into sub-2.5M_{⊙} black holes if the dark matter particles are heavy, stable, and have interactions with nucleons. We show that nondetection of gravitational waves from mergers of such low-mass black holes can constrain the interactions of nonannihilating dark matter particles with nucleons. We find benchmark constraints with LIGO O3 data, viz., σ_{χn}≥O(10^{-47}) cm^{2} for bosonic DM with m_{χ}∼PeV (or m_{χ}∼GeV, if they can Bose-condense) and ≥O(10^{-46}) cm^{2} for fermionic DM with m_{χ}∼10^{3} PeV. These bounds depend on the priors on DM parameters and on the currently uncertain binary neutron star merger rate density. However, with increased exposure by the end of this decade, LIGO will probe cross sections that are many orders of magnitude below the neutrino floor and completely test the dark matter solution to missing pulsars in the Galactic center, demonstrating a windfall science case for gravitational wave detectors as probes of particle dark matter.
如果暗物质粒子质量大、稳定且与核子有相互作用，来自星系晕的暗物质（DM）可以在中子星中积累并将它们转变为质量小于2.5M⊙的黑洞。我们表明，未探测到来自此类低质量黑洞合并产生的引力波，可以限制不湮灭暗物质粒子与核子的相互作用。我们利用LIGO O3数据找到了基准限制，即对于质量约为PeV的玻色子暗物质（如果它们能玻色凝聚，mχ约为GeV时也是如此），σχn≥O(10−47) cm2，对于质量约为103 PeV的费米子暗物质，σχn≥O(10−46) cm2。这些限制取决于暗物质参数的先验值以及目前不确定的双中子星合并率密度。然而，到本十年末随着曝光量增加，LIGO将探测比中微子下限低多个数量级的截面，并完全检验暗物质对银河系中心失踪脉冲星的解释，这表明引力波探测器作为探测粒子暗物质的手段具有意外的科学价值。
